


To Meet A Need

by MamaBear7319



Series: The Happier, Friendlier Timeline (2014) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Tony Attempts To Be A Good Mentor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaBear7319/pseuds/MamaBear7319
Summary: After Peter captures the Vulture, Tony realizes that despite what he says, Peter isn’t going to stay close to the ground and just help the little guy.  Seeing it as his only option, Tony decides to mentor Peter.  Neither one of them realized what that would mean.  #IronDad, #SpiderSon.  Characters are tagged in the order in which they appear.  Posted originally on FanFiction.Net under Garrett02.
Series: The Happier, Friendlier Timeline (2014) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934734
Comments: 19
Kudos: 59





	1. Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on FanFiction.Net (username Garrett02). It got a little out of control with something like 126 chapters in the first story. I thought I’d do some editing, fix a couple continuity errors that bugged me in the other version, divide up into maybe 2 different stories, and maybe add some missing scenes. We’ll see...
> 
> After Infinity War I found myself very much on the IronDad and SpiderSon bandwagon. Infinity War left me feeling like there was a giant 2 year hole in the story. Surely Tony and Peter saw each other in between Homecoming and Infinity War. My brain started filling in some of the gaps. I debated putting them "on paper" but more and more tidbits started populating in my brain. Then EndGame happened. And, after my brain stopped mourning, it hit me...why can't my little 2 year snippets take place in the 2014 timeline - you know, the one that Thanos abandoned when he followed Nebula. So, my brain kept working and my little snippets started to take the form of a little bit more of a story. Enjoy! Comments are always appreciated!

He thought he had handled it well. He didn't have a lot of practice being told no. In fact, other than Pepper (and occasionally an Avenger or two), Tony couldn't remember the last time anyone had actually told him "No". Offers to be an Avenger weren't often made. Actually, they were never made, it just seemed to happen. Maybe that was the problem, he was trying to force the issue when every other time it had occurred naturally. He was pretty sure that they never really sat down and decided to form the Avengers, despite Fury's "initiative". They just all saw the threat facing them and reacted. Then something else would happen and they reacted and they just kept reacting - as a team. It was by sheer dumb luck that they had been somewhat successful. And then even worse luck that there had been too many casualties along the way. The events of the last couple months were enough to convince him that they were never a team. They were just doing what they thought was right...as long as it didn't conflict with their own personal interest. But the kid...the kid was different. He didn't seem to have "personal interest" other than helping people. No one was that selfless.

Tony had two modes - fly by the seat of your pants and figure it out as you go or learn everything you can about the subject before engaging. When it came to recruiting the kid he had landed on the 2nd mode. FRIDAY had pulled everything she could before he recruited him...something he woefully regretted at this point. In his defense, he really hadn't expected a fight. He thought cooler heads would prevail and reason would be seen. He had been wrong. And he hated being wrong. He thought back over the details FRIDAY had spit out. The kids' parents had died in a plane crash. He had moved in with his Aunt and Uncle afterwards. His father had been a scientist which explained the kids' smarts. Because yes, he had also pulled his grades as well. Straight A's in advanced classes except for a brief dip about 8 months ago. Peter had mentioned something about "it" happening about 8 months ago and that was also about the same time his Uncle had been killed. Overall, he was shocked the kid wasn't a walking disaster. He certainly was at 15 and had much less emotional trauma. Now he was curious. What kid turns down joining the Avengers. And how does a 15 year old, enhanced as he was, bring down a cargo jet.

"FRIDAY, search through all cameras for facial recognition of Peter Parker from last Friday. I want to reconstruct a timeline of the kids' actions leading up to the plane crash."

It only took FRIDAY a couple hours to piece together a timeline. Traffic cameras, security cameras, and general surveillance cameras picked up way more than people realized. FRIDAY had also traced Peter’s cell phone signal so it helped narrow down where to look. "FRIDAY, start when he left for the Homecoming dance". So he watched. He watched as his Aunt dropped him off at his date’s house and watched him nervously approach the door. He glanced at the address that showed up on the map overlay and swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. Toomes. Peter Parker's date to Homecoming was the daughter of the man he had chased down and captured. Of course it was. Because the kid couldn't just go to a high school dance with a girl he liked.

Tony looked at the path the car took wondering how uncomfortable he was during that ride. There's no way Toomes could have known it was him. Peter was actually pretty good at keeping his identity a secret, surprisingly considering how much he talked. He could imagine him trying not to squirm and failing miserably. Maybe Toomes said something during the car ride to tip him off about his plans to hijack the plane. Tony kept watching as the the cameras outside the school picked up the girl getting out of the car. Tony waited for Peter to alight but he didn't...at least not at first. Tony leaned forward and stared at the look on the kids' face when he finally got out of the car. "FRIDAY freeze video". Panic seeped into Tony. Toomes knew who he was. You could tell by the look on Peter’s face. The kid covered it well but Tony recognized the fear that was just under the surface. Was that why he went after him? Why in the hell had Toomes even let him out of the car? Tony sat back deep in thought. The more he thought he knew that wasn't why he went after him. It's what Tony would have done but the kid wasn't Tony. Peter Parker was a little more noble than that.

"Boss, Mr. Parker's cell phone and facial recognition take different routes from this point". FRIDAY interrupted his thoughts as he brought his eyes back up to the frozen image on his screen. He stared into the eyes that barely masked fear. Then he saw something else - the steely determination that overshadowed the fear. Some people would have missed it but it was a look that he was familiar with because it was a look that had stared back at him before.

"FRIDAY, where does Peter's phone stop?" The reply was quick, "A warehouse approximately 8 miles from the school". Tony frowned. "FRIDAY, stay with Peter. Where do you pick him up next?"

Video started playing in front of him of Peter in his ridiculous sweatpants and hoodie running out of the rear of the school only to see him thrown into a bus moments later. Correction, a bus was thrown into him. Tony spotted the guy in the corner of the video. He was obviously using alien hybrid tech. Peter didn't stand a chance without any protection. Guilt swarmed over Tony. The kid didn't have any protection because he had taken it away from him. And from the looks of it, he had lost his web-shooters after the first hit. 

Finally, the alien weapon was webbed up. Except it wasn't Peter using the web shooter, it was his friend - Ned. "FRIDAY, make a note to dig into Peter’s friend." He had helped Pete hack his suit, released the Training Wheels Protocol, and was apparently good in an emergency. "We might need to hire him when he's out of high school." Maybe before at the rate he was going...from what Tony had seen so far, between Peter and his friend, they could give most of the junior techs at SI a run for their money.

Peter darted out of the camera view of the school and Tony's eyes focused on a new image of Spider-Man driving, although driving may not have been the correct word, a convertible Audi. He needed to remember not to let the kid drive until he could teach him a little bit better. Frowning to himself he wondered where in the hell that idea came from. Him teaching someone to drive was ludicrous. Finally he did as much damage as he could to the car and abandoned it to run into a warehouse in the Brooklyn Industrial Sector. The video skipped ahead to someone leaving the building Peter had walked into. Tony watched the video from the security camera across the street as Toomes exited the building and held his breath as he waited for Peter to exit. Except he didn't. Tony watched as the building collapsed knowing that Peter was inside.

"Boss, your heart rate and respiration are increasing. Should I call someone?". Tony fought to keep the panic he could feel rising tamped down. He kept reminding himself that he had just seen the kid that day. He was fine. No bruising. No broken bones. But that didn't reconcile to the fact that a warehouse had collapsed on top of him. And again the thought hit him that he had left him without a suit. Not that it would have helped protect him from the rubble that rained down on him. But still, the kid was in sweatpants and a hoodie. If he'd been in the suit he would have had a way to call for help. Maybe he had gotten out another way, before the building collapsed. Holding onto that thought he forced his breathing to slow down which in turn slowed his heart down. "Don't call anyone. I'm fine". Closing his eyes for a moment he opened them just in time to see a very battered Peter Parker running from the rubble, fling a web, and disappear from view. The image of Peter running from the building confirmed Tony's original suspicion that he had been inside when it collapsed and it made him sick to his stomach.

"Boss, there is no additional footage of Mr. Parker until after the plane crash". Tony pulled up the plane's data read outs and scanned through them. His eyes stopped when he looked at the trajectory changes right before it crashed. It had been headed towards Brooklyn but had changed course at the last minute. Tony studied the mechanical readings. The flaps had been moved not by their internal mechanisms but by an external force. Tony took a deep breath as he realized what that meant. The kid hasn't been in the plane...he had been outside of the plane. He watched the video feed FRIDAY had pulled from Coney Island as the plane crashed on the beach. Rubbing his hand over his face he kept reminding himself that he had just seen Peter and he was very much alive and uninjured. He made a mental note to dig into the kids’ ability to heal. It seemed to be even quicker than a certain Super Soldier that he knew. He mentally rolled through Steve's various challenges...pain killers that didn't work, sedatives that didn't work, he was sure there were others but pushed it into another section of his brain as disjointed images rolled across the screen pulled from various cameras that managed to capture footage until the last frame froze on Peter’s face as he sat atop the roller coaster. A face normally so animated was now streaked with blood, bruises, and burns. Panic set in. He had done this to the kid. He has taken away his suit and made him think he was on his own. He didn't hear FRIDAY'S inquiries as to his increasing heart rate. All he could focus on was how hurt Peter was and that it was all his fault.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Colonel Rhodes, Boss requires your assistance." Rhodey sighed as he looked up at the ceiling. "What's the problem FRIDAY?"

"Boss is experiencing a panic attack.”

Rhodey exited the elevator and let FRIDAY direct him to Tony. Kneeling down in front of him he took Tony's hand and pressed it against his chest taking deep slow breaths. "Tony, I need you to look at me. I need you to breathe." Tony's panicked eyes raised and locked onto Rhodey's eyes. He slowly started to match his breathing to Rhodey's. Unfortunately they had practice. As his breathing slowed his heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat out of his chest. After what seemed like forever he felt his heart resume a semi-normal rhythm. 

Rhodey was the first to break the silence. "I was worried you were going to backtrack on all of your progress with these attacks after Siberia. What set this one off?"

Tony shook his head. "This has nothing to do with Siberia. He glanced at the kids’ battered face and felt Rhodey's eyes follow. "Jesus, is that the kid? What happened?" Rhodey continued looking at the screen. "Is that the plane crash? That was just a couple days ago. He was just here today." The confusion was apparent in Rhodey's voice.

Tony stood up and started pacing. "Healing factor? Maybe? Doesn't matter. I did this. I am the reason a 15 year old kid missed his homecoming dance, had his date's father try to kill him by collapsing a building on him, and then singlehandedly stopped his dates' dad who is apparently an arms dealer from taking what could only be described as the mother load of weapons and technology."

Rhodey sat down, his braces giving a slow hiss as they released. Manipulating the video he ran it back to see for himself what had set Tony off. "Ok, for starters, you didn't do this. If I remember correctly you took the suit because you were trying to keep him from doing shit like this."

Tony set his jaw and ground out "But he did it anyway."

Rhodey sat back and looked between the screen frozen on a 15 year old's battered face and the face of his much older best friend. "Yeah he did. He did exactly what you didn't want him to do. Sound familiar?"

Tony snapped his eyes back to Rhodey. "I'm assuming you're choosing now to bring up some of my less brilliant ideas. That is not going to help. How am I going to stop the kid from doing stupid, life risking things out of some misguided sense of right and wrong?".

Rhodey sighed, "You're not. You never listened to me when I told you not to do stupid, life risking shit".

Tony threw himself back into the chair next to Rhodey's and put his hand over his eyes. "You cannot seriously be comparing the two of us. He's just a kid. A smart and ridiculously capable kid, but a kid none the less. I certainly don't fall in the category of self sacrificing vigilante hero." As the words fell out of his mouth he saw Rhodey smile. 

“You mean the hero who flew a nuclear warhead into a wormhole?" 

Tony scowled, "It was a one time lapse of judgement. The kid had a building fall on him and still went after the guy."

Rhodey's grin grew even bigger, "One word...Malibu."

"Shit." Tony stood up and started pacing again. Opening his mouth to counter Rhodey's comparison, he shut it just as quickly when Rhodey cut him off.

"And, I can think of at least three girlfriend's dads who have tried to kill you. Tony, face it, the reason you're having so much of a problem with this is that you see yourself in him. Hell, I saw that when you showed me his file after Germany." Rhodey paused to let what he said sink in before continuing. "The kid doesn't need someone to tell him not to do something. He needs someone to teach he how to do the things he's going to do anyway. He needs a mentor."

"I am the furthest thing from being able to be someone's mentor. In fact there are probably quite a few people who would say that I should not be around children...ever." Tony continued pacing because as much as he hated to admit it, Rhodey was right. The kid was not going to stay close to the ground and just help the little guy. He was going to take whatever was thrown at him and unfortunately the world they lived in meant the things being thrown at him could fight back against him, no matter how enhanced he was. "Crap." Tony turned to face Rhodey. "Why don't you mentor him. You're a great role model."

Rhodey laughed. "I've already mentored my genius risk taker." Tony frowned even more realizing Rhodey was right. The kid just needed someone to mentor him. Unfortunately, it seemed like the kids' only option was going to be a genius billionaire that suffered from panic attacks and was barely holding his life together. He looked up at the image of Peter and saw his own eyes mirrored in the innocent ones sporting bruises and cuts and hoped that he could somehow be worthy enough to keep the kid from getting himself killed.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter's phone buzzed as he was getting off the subway, headed to school. Two and a half weeks ago he had been excited about taking Liz to Homecoming, a little over two weeks ago he had turned down a spot with the Avengers. He was still wondering if he had made the right decision. When he glanced down he saw an unknown number with the message "Want to come by the lab after school? I have some ideas for your web-shooters. We can order pizza. TS". A grin spread across Peter's face. Did Mr. Stark just ask him to come work on his web shooters? He quickly typed "I'd love to. Need to ask Aunt May". He had a response within seconds. "I called her to ask. She yelled at me for a solid 5 minutes before relenting. I'll pick you up after school." Peter's grin quickly turned into a frown. Aunt May had yelled at Mr. Stark? But she was going to let him work in his lab. He hovered over the keys and finally typed "K". He'd text Aunt May at lunch just to make sure but not even Flash could put a damper on his day. He was going to get to spend the afternoon working with his hero.


	2. Lab Time

Tony drummed his fingers mindlessly on the steering wheel waiting for 2:45 to show up on the clock. He was starting to rethink this whole mentoring thing. Surely he could find someone a little better suited to help the kid. Unfortunately his options were limited. He wasn't speaking to most of his former "colleagues". Maybe he could locate Bruce. Bruce would be perfect. If he only knew where he was. The distinct sound of a bell rang and a few minutes later kids poured out of the school. Tony debated getting out of the car to wait but decided against it. Last thing either one of them needed was a scene. He saw Peter walk down the steps of the school, backpack slung over his shoulder. He was flanked by Ned and a girl Tony didn't know. Making a mental note to figure out who she was, he watched the kid do some kind of elaborate handshake and glance at the black Audi. Turning back to the girl he said something, then turned and walked toward the car.

Peter grabbed the door handle, opened the door, and slid into the front seat. "Hey, Mr. Stark!"

"Hey kid." Tony used the distraction of navigating through the sea of cars to figure out what to say next. It was unsettling. He always knew what to say. Usually it was a lot of words that either provided a distraction to what he was actually doing or just a lot of words making people think he was engaged when really he was saying nothing. He found himself not wanting to be _that_ Tony Stark. Finally pulling into traffic he glanced over. The kid was fidgeting. Before he knew what he was doing he opened his mouth. "Aunt May said to make sure you got your homework done before we, and I quote, 'play in the lab'".

A grin spread across the Peter’s face at the idea of 'playing in the lab'. "I did my Biology homework in Chemistry and MJ helped me with my English Lit homework at lunch. Everything else I did in class."

"Who's MJ?" Tony asked before his brain caught up to his mouth. "And why aren't you doing Chemistry in Chemistry?"

"I usually make web fluid in Chemistry. I already know what we're doing in Chemistry so I might as well be productive. MJ is a friend. She's the captain of our Academic Decathlon team. English Lit is her favorite subject. So she doesn't mind trading out help. I review Physics with her so she can prep for tests. It works out." Peter shifted his backpack between his feet before settling back in the seat again.

Tony had almost let out a snort at the kids' comment about Chemistry but held back when he realized there was not a trace of ego in the comment. Peter was simply stating a fact. Yet another thing that was so foreign to him. He had always liked being the smartest one in the room and liked making sure everyone knew it even more. His brain shifted over to MJ and figured that's who had walked out with Peter and Ned. "Ok, so no homework. Any tests you need to study for?" He mentally went down the list May had given him.

"No tests for a couple weeks". As if reading his mind, or maybe just being too familiar with Aunt May's "list", Peter added "No reports or projects on the horizon, and yes, I ate lunch. Although I can't say chicken fingers are my favorite school lunch". Peter wrinkled his nose at the memory of the bland chicken fingers and glanced over at Tony. "Anything else on her list?"

Tony chuckled, "No, kid, I think we covered it all. Bring your suit?"

Peter patted his backpack as he nodded. "What kind of upgrades did you have in mind?"

They talked web-shooter design until FRIDAY interrupted and Tony realized it had been almost 45 minutes and they were near the compound. "Boss, you asked me to remind you to order pizza before we arrived at the compound. Would you like to order the usual?"

"What do you want on your pizza kid?"

"Umm...everything but mushrooms?"

"FRIDAY, four large pizzas, everything but mushrooms."

The compound was just as impressive as it was when Happy had brought him out a couple weeks ago. Tony walked him through a completely different door than before. As they entered, FRIDAY'S voice piped through speakers Peter assumed were cleverly disguised in the ceiling. "Pizza will be here in 45 minutes. Peter, welcome back to the Avengers compound."

"Thanks FRIDAY". Peter looked over at Tony hoping he didn't have the look of a star struck teenager on his face.

"FRIDAY is installed throughout the compound. So, if you ever need anything just ask her. She'll be able to hear you." Peter nodded, eyes still taking in everything around him.

"So, we just came through my private entrance. Perks of designing everything. Just about everyone else has to either go through the main entrance or there's a couple more secure side entrances." Tony led him down an open hallway. "Living quarters are down that hall, although mine are upstairs. There's a main common area and kitchen too." Tony kept walking towards an elevator bank. The doors slid open as they reached them.

Peter figured FRIDAY controlled access there as well. Once inside Peter realized there were no buttons. Tony caught his eye. "FRIDAY, take us to my lab."

"FRIDAY is by far the coolest thing you've done." Peter grinned at Tony as the elevator began to move. "She's in your suit, in your car, in the building." 

Tony chuckled. "You know most people would say the Iron Man suit or the multi-billion dollar company. But, I have to say I somewhat agree with you."

The doors slid open and Peter's jaw dropped at the sight of the glass wall in front of him. He followed Tony out of the elevator and walked with him through the glass door that slid open. Two bots whirled to life and beeped a greeting. "That's DUM-E and U." He paused and turned to Peter. "This is Peter. He has full access when I'm here. DUM-E, show Peter what you set up for him." Tony leaned back on one of the tables and watched DUM-E push Peter in front of the workstation the bots had put together.

Peter eyed the set up in front of him. All of the chemicals he used for the webs plus a few others. A holographic interface popped up when DUM-E pushed a button. "That's awesome DUM-E. Thanks!" Peter turned to look at the bot that was whirling joyfully next to him. Not to be left out, U made its way over and patted Peter on the back.

"Ok, back to work you two. You can't keep him and you can't distract him." Tony pushed himself away from the table and walked over to where Peter stood watching the bots mournfully move away from him. "Mr. Stark, this is amazing."

"Of course it is. It's me. Now let's get to work on those web shooters."

It felt like they had barely started working when the glass door slid open. Peter looked over and froze. Tony followed Peter's gaze, "Rhodey, did you hijack our dinner?"

"I showed up the same time your pizza did. I told FRIDAY I'd deliver them. Which means you have to feed me too." Rhodey set the pizza down on the table by the door and looked at Peter. "I'm Rhodey. You must be Peter."

"Uh, yes sir." Peter stammered a response. "You're War Machine." Peter slid in front of the web shooter that was in pieces on the workstation.

"Relax Underoos, he knows." Tony walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a water and tossed it to Rhodey. "Gatorade or water?"

"Gatorade." Tony threw a Gatorade over his shoulder and Peter snatched it out of the air his eyes still on the new arrival. "Colonel Rhodes, it's nice to meet you." Peter crossed the room and extended his hand, "I didn't get to actually meet you before."

"You can call me Rhodey. Don't let Tony corrupt you. You definitely have better manners than he does. What are you working on?"

Tony grabbed a slice of pizza and listened to Peter explain what they were trying to do.

"Tony gave you taser webs?" Rhodey asked, baffled at the 500 web combinations Peter was scrolling through.

"Yes. I can change the power setting but I generally keep it at the lowest setting so I know it's non-lethal." Peter paused and looked at a line of code. "What I want to try to figure out is how to do a delayed charge where I can kinda drop a web grenade and then trigger the electric pulse."

Rhodey looked between Peter and Tony, "When are you ever going to need that?"

"Well, I never thought I'd need taser webs but I actually end up using them quite a bit." Peter retorted.

"Plus, if the kid can figure it out, why shouldn't he?" Tony interrupted, looking over Peter's shoulder at the lines of code. The idea was Peter's and he was confident he'd get it worked out. And to be honest, the idea was pretty brilliant. He could think of a couple different times something like that would come in handy.

Rhodey shook his head. "You two are way too much alike. You've seen Jurassic Park, right? Wasn't there some kind of line about just because you can do something doesn't mean you should?"

Peter laughed, "The actual line was 'your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.' In this case, I'm not creating a dinosaur, I'm creating electro pulse web grenades."

"Yeah, yeah whatever. Good luck with your project kid. Tony, remember your call with the General tomorrow." Grabbing a piece of pizza he walked through the door waiving over his head.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony eased his car next to the curb, looked at the clock on the dashboard and then over at Peter. He had thought about bringing up the subject a couple times on the way to Peter's apartment but stopped every time. He didn't want the ride to be awkward. "Well, we made it with 5 minutes to spare." He paused. Why on earth was this so hard. "I was thinking, how would you like to make this a weekly thing? You don't have decathlon practice on Wednesday's, right?"

Peter's eyes widened, "Really Mr. Stark? I would love that!"

Tony let out an inward sigh of relief. "I'll call May tomorrow and talk to her about it."


	3. Training

Wednesday's with Mr. Stark were amazing. The first couple weeks they mainly worked on Peter's suit or web-shooters. There was always some kind of new feature that Mr. Stark had come up with in the week since Peter had last seen him. This last week was focused on repairing some damage the suit had taken, which was a lot less fun since Peter got to sit, observe, get checked out by the on-staff doctor in MedBay, and then listen to an hour long lecture on the way home about unnecessary risks and the need to call for backup. That Wednesday wasn't as much fun but Mr. Stark made up for it by texting him the next morning and asking if he wanted to spend Friday night at the compound since May was working late. Peter was starting to wonder exactly how much May and Mr. Stark talked. Every time Peter texted to confirm something, May responded that she had already talked to Tony and that it was fine.

So Friday after school, Peter pulled his overnight bag out of his locker and headed outside. Happy was waiting by the curb. Not unusual, Mr. Stark didn't always pick him up. Happy driving meant that Peter could finish up some homework that he hadn't been able to finish earlier. Peter was sliding his history book back in his backpack as they pulled up to the compound. Happy called from the front, "Grab your suit and head to the gym. I'll take your bags to your room."

"Ok Happy. Thanks!" The gym was new. They almost always went straight to the lab. Suit and mask in hand Peter headed to the nearest elevator. "FRIDAY? Happy told me to go to the gym. Any idea which one?"

"Boss is waiting for you in the training gym. I suggest you change in the locker room and then head into the gym."

"Thanks FRIDAY." Peter exited the elevator and was changed and entering the gym within 5 minutes. "Whoa...". Peter froze when he got a look at the gym. Iron Man and War Machine were maneuvering steel beams into place.

Hovering 20 feet up in the air, Tony flipped his face mask back and called down, "Hey Underoos. We're doing something a little bit different today. Rhodey's going to try to shoot you down."

War Machine fastened the last beam into place and landed on the ground next to Peter. Tony landed a few seconds later. "The purpose of today is for us to see how you function with an airborne foe. Your goal is to get from one side of the gym to the other without Rhodey shooting you down. I'm observing. We'll assess after the first round. Got it?"

"I have to swing from this side to that side without Rhodey shooting me down. Got it." Peter suspected this was going to be harder than it seemed.

War Machine lifted back up, "Don't worry kid, no live rounds. Tony rigged up some kind of low voltage pulse. FRIDAY'S recording so we can check hits." He zoomed up and disappeared behind one of the beams.

Tony lifted off. "Whenever you're ready."

Peter pulled his mask on and nodded. Taking a deep breath he took aim at one of the lower beams and flipped his way higher. "Karen, can you tell where War Machine is?"

"Negative Peter. FRIDAY is masking his heat signature."

Peter concentrated on his next swing. His Spidey-sense told him to roll to the right just in time to avoid a shot from War Machine. Tucking his legs in he flipped over and shot a web in the opposite direction, taking him away from another blast. He felt the web break free and shot another one just in time to keep from slamming into the beam. Definitely harder than it seemed. 

His Spidey-senses triggered telling him to move in multiple directions at once. He realized War Machine was utilizing rapid fire and he felt one of the blasts hit his hip and grimaced. He was three fourths of the way through the course. But, if he couldn't get away from War Machine he wasn't going to make it. 

He pulled himself skyward and arched back flipping over War Machine. Firing webs at the open gun ports he sealed both of them, then he shot a final web toward War Machine pinning him briefly to a beam. He knew it wouldn't hold but he thought it would buy him enough time to make it to the end. He shot a web that propelled him under War Machine. Flicking his wrist he shot another web that would take him to the end. 

War Machine broke free and fired off a shot that hit his right thigh as he flipped through the air and landed, then hit the ground as his leg gave out under him. Forcing himself into a roll he landed in a crouch and watched War Machine land in front him, webs still clinging to the gun ports and various parts of his armor. Tony landed next to him and flipped his face mask back. "You ok Pete?"

Rising to his feet, Peter pulled off his mask. "How'd I do?"

"Not bad. You made it through so that's better than not. Can you get these webs off?" War Machine's face plate slid back as he held up both arms, webs hanging off.

Peter slid off a glove and cleaned off the webs as much as he could. Once most of them were off, Rhodey slid the face mask back into place and took off to hide behind one of the beams for the second run.  
"How do you feel? Up for another run?"

Peter nodded at Tony and rubbed his thigh before sliding his glove back on. "So critique me. What do I need to change?"

"You waited until you were almost through before you engaged. While my preference is always going to be for you to evade you need to get better at engaging. So, in the safety of a training arena where Rhodey is only trying to gently knock you down I want you to engage. Got it?"

Peter nodded and pulled the mask over his head. Tony lifted off again and Peter studied the beam configuration. Engagement. Web Rhodey up. "Karen, analyze War Machine's armor and attack style. Give me some options."

"Analyzing." A few moments later Karen spoke up. "Colonel Rhodes favors his right side for firing. He also tends to roll to the left when evading. I suggest focusing first on his right side gun ports then web him up when he's evading. You should be able to anticipate his movement."

"Ok. Easy." Peter flung a web and started moving his way through the gym. Karen was right, War Machine's did favor his right side guns. He was able to web up the ports but webbing War Machine was a little more challenging. He kept trying to hit him when he was trying to roll and kept missing because while War Machine may favor his right guns, it didn't mean he didn't use the left side ones. Focused on trying to web War Machine to take him out of play, Peter completely missed him firing at both the web holding his weight and then another round hit Peter in the shoulder. Landing flat on his back he opened his eyes and looked up at Iron Man staring down at him. "I'm better at evading," Peter grumbled.

"Yep, I don't need FRIDAY to play back anything to tell you what you did wrong. You asked Karen to analyze his weaknesses, which is good. Use the tools at your disposal. Then, you focused solely on what she said. That's bad."

Peter frowned and grabbed Iron Man’s hand pulling himself up. "Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing? The point of this is to give you some training. Want to go one more round before we break?"

Peter nodded and took off to the far end to start again. This time, he managed to engage quicker, still didn't succeed in stopping him, did a lot of scrambling to get away, but made it to the end quicker than he did the first time. Over all, it was a success but it wasn't pretty by any means.

Iron Man and War Machine landed in front of Peter who found himself leaning against the wall. Fighting, well, evading War Machine was exhausting. "Ok kid, change out of your suit. Rhodey and I are getting out of our armor. We'll meet you outside the locker room and head upstairs and find something to eat."

Peter pulled his mask off and headed for the locker room. Various parts of his body were still stinging from the low voltage hits. He hoped dinner was a little less combative. He pulled his jeans and t-shirt back on, grabbed his suit and headed to meet Rhodey and Mr. Stark. Getting out of armor was apparently easier than changing out of his Spider-Man suit because the two men were waiting for him.

They all entered the elevator and Mr. Stark directed FRIDAY to take him to his floor. Peter knew Rhodey had his own rooms on the floor below but also knew that usually when he was at the compound he spent most of his time either in conference rooms or with Tony so it didn't surprise Peter when they all arrived on Mr. Stark's floor. What did surprise him was when Mr. Stark directed him to a room that Peter thought should have been a guest room on Mr. Stark's floor. "I thought my room was downstairs? Next to Visions?"

Tony waived him off "Vision hasn't been spending a lot of time here and when he does he's still not understanding the whole wall and door thing. Thought you might be more comfortable on a floor with an actual person. Drop your suit in your room. We can debrief until dinner is ready."

Peter headed towards what was now apparently his room...at Avengers headquarters...down the hall from Iron Man's. His life was officially crazy. Opening the door he saw his bag on the bed. A bed that was bigger than his bed at home. In a room that was bigger than his and May's rooms put together. He walked into the adjoining bathroom which was about the size of his room at home and threw his suit over one of the towel racks. Heading back out to the main room he dropped into the stool next to Rhodey at the kitchen bar. "Need any help?"

Tony shook his head, "It'll be ready in about ten minutes." Covering a pot he turned to look at Peter. "So, what did you think about training?"

"It was awesome." Peter's enthusiasm was back. As worn out as he was, he had just trained with War Machine and Iron Man. "I mean I know I have a long way to go but I'm glad you let me do it."

Tony nodded, "That's kind of the point. You've got the right instincts and the spider side provides the skills. You just need to hone them a little bit. I talked to your aunt about trying to do a little more training on the hero side. She thinks anything that will help you not get hurt is a good thing." Tony thought the kid might explode. He was definitely up for training. "I thought we could work on some hand to hand combat too."

Peter's face fell a little, "I don't know if that's a good idea." Seeing the questioning look on Tony's face he continued. "Super strength is part of the package. I don't like hitting people." He paused and looked down. "I'm pretty sure I could kill them if I hit too hard."

"All the more reason to work on it. We can start in the morning with finding out exactly how strong you are." Seeing the apprehension on Peter's face he added, "No human targets." With that Tony turned back to the stove and turned off everything. A few minutes later the three of them were eating pasta with salad and garlic bread. Peter's plate was 3x larger than the other two. Which he finished plus two others. The kid ate like Steve had.

After they finished eating, Tony pulled up FRIDAY's video feed of the training runs and the three of them proceeded to pour over every detail pointing out the good and the bad. To Peter's surprise, Tony critiqued War Machine's performance almost as much as he did Peter's. They ended up pulling in video from multiple Avenger battles as well as Karen's feeds from some of Peter's. It started with proving to Rhodey that he did indeed prefer his right side and almost always rolled to the left.

It was well after midnight by the time everyone headed to their own rooms. Peter pulled pajama pants and a t-shirt out of his bag, brushed his teeth, and laid on the bed staring at the room around him. It was a little more customized than a normal guest room. He wondered when Mr. Stark had moved his room. He was glad he had. Mr. Stark's living area was a little more lived in compared to the almost sterile environment downstairs.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Ok Pete, I told your aunt you'd be home before lunch so we only have a little bit of time. You said you don't hit people because you're afraid you'll hurt them, in order to figure out how to work around that I need to know how hard you can hit."

Peter was standing in front of a heavy bag looking dubious. "Mr. Stark, I'll break it."

"Good. I want you to break it." He had debated about giving the kid boxing gloves. Ultimately it was Peter who turned them down. Peter was scared to actually hit someone which might be ok with the low level criminals he dealt with most nights but the longer he did this the more of a chance there was that he was going to eventually get into situations where he'd need to not just evade but engage. And Tony wanted to make sure he was prepared for it. And that meant he had to know what the kid was capable of.

"Are you sure?" Peter asked, still looking apprehensive.

"Yes." Tony's reply was definitive. He watched Peter get into a decent fighting stance although it could use improvement. Peter reared back his fist and gave a half punch, not quite enough to bring the bag down from where it was secured on the beam above it, but enough to tear a hole in the side of the bag.

"Ok, not bad. FRIDAY?" Tony looked at the damage to the bag.

"Analysis indicates that Peter did not use his full force."

Tony turned his head and looked at Peter. "Seriously?"

"Mr. Stark, ever since the bite I've held back. I snapped my toothbrush in half the first time I tried to brush my teeth." Peter looked at Mr. Stark pleadingly. "I don't know if I know how to not hold back."

Tony pulled him over to the heavy bag hanging next to the one he had just put a hole in. "Just try. I can't help if I don't know what I'm working with. I get that you don't want to hurt anyone and hope to God you're never in a situation where you do hurt someone. But if you continue to put yourself in harms way night after night something will eventually happen. It always does. I want to ensure that you can defend yourself. If I know what your max is we can work with biofeedback and figure out what is the best non-lethal approach."

Peter studied him, took a deep breath, and nodded. Back in a fighting stance, he reared his fist back and punched the bag. Not only was there a hole in the bag but it was ripped from the steel beam and laying 10 feet away from Peter.

"Ok. FRIDAY, analyze impact force and speed." Tony put his hand on Peter's shoulder and squeezed. "I get it. Now let me work on a solution."

XXXXXXXXXX

Pepper walked into Tony's lab to find him studying a series of numbers on his screen. "Did Peter leave already?"

Tony looked up and watched Pepper cross the distance between the door and his desk. "His aunt wanted him home before lunch. I had Happy take him."

"Too bad, I wanted to spend some time with him. There aren't many people who can wrap you up the way he does." Looking at the screen closer she realized it was bio-metric data. "What are you working on?"

"Karen has noted that when Pete fights he never hits anyone directly. He's mastered the art of knocking someone out with anything other than his fist. It's compromised him a couple times. I had him punch a heavy bag to see how much force he has. The bag landed 10 feet away from him. He's terrified that he's going to hurt someone. I'm trying to fix it."

Pepper studies the data. "How did Steve not kill people when he hit them?"

Tony scrubbed a hand over his face. He had already come to the same place Pepper had. "Control. Practice. I don't know. I'm afraid bio-metric feedback is only going to help so much. I just don't know if I can handle the alternatives."

Pepper leaned down and kissed him on the head. "You'll work it out."

Tony grimaced at the screen. He had a couple bio feedback protocols he could use but he wasn’t sure it would be enough. But he wasn’t quite ready to deal with the alternative solutions


	4. Sick Day

"Dude, you look terrible".

Peter didn't lift his forehead off of the cool metal of the locker when Ned leaned against the row of lockers to look at him.

"Seriously, why are you here?" Ned grabbed Peter's books from under his arm as they started to slip. "Better yet, how are you here? You definitely have a fever and should probably be in bed."

The warning bell rang and Peter pulled his head away from the locker and shuffled in the general direction of English Lit. "May left for work before I got up so she couldn't call in for me and she's assisting on a long surgery so I can't call her to check me out." They got a warning look from their teacher as they walked into the classroom and slid into their desks. Peter crossed his arms and rested his chin on them as the teacher turned her back and started writing on the board. He could hear the soft buzzing from his phone. Pulling it out of his pocket he saw the message on the splash screen.

_“Heard you have a long weekend. Want to come out and work on the suit?"_

He would have loved nothing more than to head out to the compound for the 4-day weekend. He had seen May's work schedule on the refrigerator and knew she'd be working most of the weekend. But, as miserable as he felt, he knew there was no way he could work in the lab this weekend. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed.

_”I think I'm coming down with something. Don't want to get you sick. Probably best if I stay here and sleep it off over the weekend."_

His head and arms resumed their position on his desk and his eyes slipped shut as their teacher droned on about whatever book they were supposed to be reading. Hearing what he knew to be a phone taking a picture, he opened his eyes and looked at Ned, who was busy texting away. Glancing up Ned whispered, "He doesn't believe you. He thinks you're hurt." Peter frowned as his phone buzzed again.

_”I'm checking you out. Be there in less than 10."_

Peter's frown deepened as he contemplated his response.

_"You have to be listed as my emergency contact to check me out. I'm fine. I'll head home after school and sleep all weekend."_

He was 99% sure he was going to be ignored but he thought he'd at least try.

_”FRIDAY'S got it, head to the office."_ Peter showed the string of messages to Ned. Ned's arm immediately shot up. "Mrs. Watkins, Peter needs to go to the nurse. He isn't feeling good."

Their teacher looked over her glasses at the two boys and nodded her approval. "Mr. Parker, I'm not sure you should have come to school today. Make sure you read the next two chapters before Tuesday." She didn't argue when Ned stood up to walk with Peter to the office.

__

Ned steered Peter to his locker and shoved a couple of his books into his backpack, noting the suit folded in the bottom. Peter stared numbly at his friend. His brain was definitely not firing on all cylinders. What did Mr. Stark mean by 'FRIDAY'S got it'. His head hurt too bad as Ned steered him down the hall towards the office. The front doors to the school opened. Ned was waiving before Peter could even look up.

__

Tony stopped in front of Peter and took off his glasses scrutinizing the boys' face. "You look like crap kid." He slipped his watch off of his own wrist and fastened it on Peter's. Putting his glasses back on, he tapped the side. "FRIDAY, give me Pete's vitals including temperature."

__

"Peter's temperature is 103.8. All of his other vitals are within his normal range. Recommend fluids until he can get to MedBay."

__

Tony turned to Ned. "Got a vending machine or something?"

__

Ned nodded and asked, "Gatorade?"

__

Tony eyed Peter. He wasn't sure how much longer the kid was going to stay on his feet. "Make it three. I'll figure out how to check him out." Tony turned his attention back to Peter. "You can sleep in the car. How do we get you out of here?"

__

Peter raised his arm and pointed in the general direction of the office and followed as Tony headed in the direction, pulling him along. Sitting behind the desk, the receptionist looked up as Peter walked through the door. Her eyes widened when she saw who was behind him. "Uh, you're Tony Stark?"

__

Tony flashed the smile he reserved for the press and people he wanted something from. "I need to check Peter out."

__

The receptionist looked from Tony to Peter still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Tony Stark was standing in front of her desk. "Mr. Parker. Right. Oh, Peter, you look like you have a fever." Stumbling over what she was supposed to do, Tony prompted, "Do I need to sign something?"

__

"Right..". She typed Peters name in to pull up his file. As she was waiting for it to pull up she started, "You have to be listed...", she looked down at the screen, "oh, huh." Grabbing a form she placed it in the desk in front of him. "Just sign there."

__

Tony pulled a pen out of his breast pocket, scrawled his name, and looked back up. "Anything else?"

__

"No. Peter, feel better." The receptionist stared after them as they walked out of the office.

__

Ned met them by the front door and handed Peter a Gatorade and shoved the other two into his backpack. "Text me later and let me know how you're doing."

__

Tony steered Peter out the front door. "See ya Ned. Thanks for the heads up." He continued guiding Peter until the reached the car. Pulling open the passenger side, he waited for Peter to slide in before shutting the door behind him. Walking around, he opened his door and slid behind the steering wheel. FRIDAY started the car and Tony pulled away from the school into traffic headed to the compound. Pushing a button next to him he heard Peter let out a satisfied sigh as the seat cooling system turned on and enveloped him. Tony adjusted the temperature to cool Peter's side even more then turned on his own seat heaters to keep from freezing to death. "Since you haven't said more than ten words since I picked you up I know you feel bad. Do not go to sleep until you finish a Gatorade."

__

Peter opened one eye and twisted the cap off. Tipping the bottle up he drank most of it before putting it down. "I feel like I got run over by a truck. You didn't have to pick me up though. I could have just gone home after school."

__

"Kid, I hate to break it to you but you weren't going to make it through the end of class much less to the end of the day." Since FRIDAY was driving he could turn all of his attention to Peter. "Have you been sick since the bite?"

__

"No. I was really sick right after but not since. And I used to get sick all the time before." Peter finished the Gatorade and dropped the empty bottle into his backpack. Closing his eyes again he nestled into his seat. He opened one eye and looked over at Tony, "Did you hack my school to put yourself down as my emergency contact?"

__

"Don't worry about it." Tony grimaced at how flushed Peter looked. His healing factor should have taken care of whatever bug was in the process of leveling the him. He grabbed his tablet and pulled up the bio-metric data FRIDAY was getting from his watch that he had placed on Peter's wrist. The fever was the only thing that was bothersome. Everything else wasn't too far out of whack. He sent the feed to Dr. Cho. When Ned had sent him the picture of Peter he had immediately called her to find out where she was. Luckily she was in New York for a conference and agreed to head to the compound. She'd definitely beat them there and he wanted her to have his latest readings. It also meant that he'd had to grant her access to Peter's files. Too many people knew who Peter was for his liking but this was unavoidable.

__

FRIDAY seemed to understand that Tony wanted to get Peter to the compound as soon as possible and made record time. Happy met them in front of the MedBay entrance and opened Peter's door. "Come on kid, you're too big to carry."

__

Peter startled awake and blinked up at Happy. Groaning he swung his feet to the pavement and pushed himself up. "I'll grab your bag kid. Walk." Happy gave him a gentle push in the direction of the door. Tony fell into step next to Peter and grabbed his arm. Dr. Cho opened the door and ushered them in. A nurse led Peter into one of the exam rooms leaving Tony in the hall with Dr. Cho.

__

"I can't believe you pulled me out of a conference because your kid has the flu." Dr. Cho looked up at Tony with a smirk.

__

"Helen, you know he's not mine. And, with his unique situation who knows what this could end up being." Tony's eyes didn't move from the open door Peter had disappeared into. "So what's the plan."

__

"The plan is to pump him full of fluid and nutrients. I took Steve's baseline IV mix and doubled the nutrients. Hopefully it'll kickstart his healing factor. I still think it's just the flu, which means you also get a shot to keep you from picking up whatever strand this is."

__

Tony pulled his eyes from Peter's door and looked at Helen, "How long until you know if the IV route works? I haven't had a lot of luck finding medicine that works on him."

__

"The IV will take about an hour. Meanwhile we're checking to see if I'm right about it being the flu. There's a chair in there if you want to wait. I'll come give you your shot in a minute." With that Helen headed down the hall.

__

Tony walked into the exam room to find Peter curled up on the bed with an IV in his arm. His watch was on the table next to the bed and had been replaced with a different monitor, a digital readout showing Peter's vitals. The fever was down but just barely. Tony settled into the chair and waited. Helen returned a couple minutes later and jabbed a needle into his arm, and promised to be back after she reviewed the test results. And Tony continued to wait. Frustration got the better of him after less than ten minutes so he turned on his tablet and started designing.

__

Helen walked back into the room and checked Peter's IV. Tony looked up expectantly. "It's definitely the flu although it's interacting differently with his biology than it does normally. Judging by the fact that his fever is on the way down I think the IV was definitely the route to go. I'm going to set another one and we'll re-evaluate. It is bothersome that his healing factor didn't take care of this on its own. I want to look at it some more but since we don't know exactly what happened to him we're just going to have to take things like this as they come."

__

Tony glanced at the read out. Peter's fever was down to 102.3. "Thanks Helen. It's ok that he's been out the entire time, right?"

__

Helen shrugged, "Probably. Steve always slept a lot when he got injured but it usually only lasted a day or so. My guess is he'll start stirring when his fever is down a bit more. Yell if you need me. I'm going through his file to see if anything else jumps out."

__

Tony sat back down and pulled open the tablet once Helen had left. At the rate he was going, the kid was going to have at least three new suits by the time he woke up.

__

XXXXXXXXXX

__

Peter stretched his legs out and rolled onto his back. Opening his eyes he snapped them shut immediately.

__

"FRIDAY, dim the lights 70%"

__

Peter heard Mr. Stark's voice to his right and squinted his eyes open.  
"Better?"

__

Peter nodded and opened his eyes, looking around. "Where are we?"

__

"Compound MedBay. You fell asleep in the car so I'm not surprised you don't remember." Tony looked over at the readout. "Your fever is down to a little over 100 so you should be starting to feel a little bit better." He twisted the cap off of a Gatorade and handed it to Peter, adjusting the bed so he was raised enough to drink.

__

Helen walked in glancing up at the dimmed light. "Mr. Parker, nice to see you back in the land of the living. How are you feeling?"

__

Peter shrugged, "I can think straight so that's a start. I'm tired." Peter frowned and snuggled into the bed.

__

"Being tired is to be expected. I think it's part of how your healing factor works."

__

Tony looked down at Peter, "Now that your fever is under control, we need to figure out why that healing factor of yours isn't working on the flu."

__

Peter shrugged again closing his eyes. "I don't know, maybe it's because of the ribs."

__

Tony closed his eyes hoping he didn't hear what he thought he just heard. Opening them he starred at Peter. "I'm sorry. What was that?"

__

Peter opened his eyes which at that moment Helen thought looked exactly like a deer's eyes right before a car hit them. "Nothing" He mumbled trying to shrink back into the bed.

__

"Shirt off."

__

"Mr. Stark, it's nothing. It's not necessary." Peter pushed up on the bed and furtively tried to get as far away as he could.

__

"Shirt off."

__

Grumbling under his breath, Peter swung his legs off the table and sat up. "Fine". Grabbing the bottom of his t-shirt he pulled it over his head.  
Tony stared at the blue, black, and green bruise spread across Peter's left side. The bruise that was only broken up by a white bandage. "FRIDAY, lights up 40% and run a full scan of Peter."

__

"Peter has multiple contusions. Three cracked ribs that are in the process of healing. He also has a laceration that was approximately 3 inches in length. It appears to be almost completely healed."

__

"You didn't think to mention this before?" Tony asked in exasperation.

__

Helen stepped between them and pulled back the bandage. "Who stitched you up?" Reaching into the drawer next to the bed she grabbed a pair of surgical scissors and tweezers. Snipping the stitches she pulled them out.

__

Hissing at the pull against the already bruised skin, Peter responded "I did."

__

Tony rubbed his hand over his face again. "What did you do, watch a YouTube video?"

__

Helen stepped between the two. "Ok, so good news. Healing factor is working. Better news, apparently it has the ability to triage wounds. Peter, I think you'll be closer to 100% if you get a good nights sleep and eat some solid food." She looked up at Tony, "that's good, so take the spider upstairs and get him some food."

__

Tony's eyes hadn't moved off of Peter. Peter on the other hand was looking anywhere but at Tony. "Come on kid. Let's figure dinner out."

__

Resigned, Peter grabbed his t-shirt, pulling it over his head as he hopped of the bed. Tony walked out of the room and Peter fell into step beside him. "Mr. Stark, I can head home for the weekend."

__

"Now why would we want to do that Spider Kid?"

__

"Because you probably have better things to do than nurse me back to health." Peter knew he was grasping at straws but he really didn't want to spend the weekend getting yelled at.

__

"Nope. My schedule is completely clear all weekend. I was thinking cheeseburgers for dinner. Sound good?"

__

Peter let out a resigned sigh, "Sure."

__

"Ok. Things to work on this weekend. You are going to patch your suit up. Then, you and I are going to design your own watch." Tony held up his wrist showing his reclaimed watch.

__

Peter interrupted, excitement evident in his voice, "Really? That's awesome! I can't believe you're going to let me patch my suit."

__

"Yeah, new rule. You break it, you fix it. For the watch, start thinking about what features you want."

__

"Yeah, of course." Peter tried to sound contrite. "What do you mean what kind of features?"

__

"Well the point is for Karen and Friday to have a way to monitor you when you're out of the suit so definitely bio-metrics."

__

Peter frowned, if Karen and Friday have access that meant that Mr. Stark would have access.

__

"I can actually see the wheels spinning in your head Spiderling. Yes, the watch will have a tracker as well. And alerts set up for things like high fevers."

__

Peter groaned. He thought maybe he had gotten out of the lecture. He was wrong, Mr. Stark was just gearing up for it.

__

Tony threw his arm around Peter's shoulder. "Relax Peter. Cheeseburgers and a movie tonight. We can discuss your lack of self preservation in the morning."

__


	5. Why

Cheeseburgers and a movie was...fun. Peter had been dreading the lecture but Mr. Stark hadn't said one word about any of it. Which made it so much worse. They ate, then watched a movie. Then Mr. Stark sent him to bed and Peter didn't complain. He was still tired. He shut his bedroom door behind him and pulled a pair of pajama pants out of the dresser. Part of him still thought it was weird that he had clothes at the Avenger Compound. 

Changing he threw himself on his bed and pulled out his phone. He texted Ned and gave him a run down of what happened. While Ned was typing he flipped back over to his other unread messages. Two from May and one from MJ. He typed a quick message to May assuring her he was feeling much better and that he was going to bed early and that he would call her in the morning. Before going back to Ned, he opened MJ's message.

_"Ned said you were sick but I'm not sure I buy it. Saw Mr. Stark at school. If you got checked out of school to go fight bad guys it's going to reinforce my opinion of your internship."_

Panic swept to Peter. What did MJ know? He flipped back over to Ned's texts to see the latest one _"Heads up I think MJ knows. And by think I mean she asked me point blank and I'm not a good liar."_ Great. He flipped back over to MJ's message.

_”Ha Ha, I have the flu. Ask Ned for the picture."_

Peter waited for a return text and instead, his phone rang in his hands. Crap. It's not like he could ghost her now. He had just texted her. And if he did, it would just make her even more suspicious. He slid his thumb over the screen and put the call on speaker. "Hey MJ." Peter cringed. He knew he didn't sound sufficiently sick.

"Peter. You don't sound sick."

He could hear the suspicion in her voice. "They have great doctors at the compound. I'm feeling much better than I did this morning."

"Uh-huh, I know you're Spider-Man. I've known for months."

Crap. He flipped the call over to video and MJ's face appeared in the screen a second later. "MJ..."

She cut him off, "I've known for months and haven't told anyone. Your secret is safe. I just have questions."

Peter sighed, he wasn't sure he could go through the questions again. There was only so many times he could take being asked if he laid eggs.

MJ took his silence as acceptance so she continued, "Why?"

Peter snapped his eyes to meet hers. Mr. Stark was the only other one who had asked him why. Ned had asked a gazillion questions but never why. May had talked a lot, and had tried to make him promise a lot of things but had never asked why. MJ was asking why.

"Why what?" He wasn't sure he wanted to answer this question right now.

"Why do you put your life in danger almost every night?"

MJ looked sincere. There was no hint of teasing or sarcasm or whatever it was that she did. He took a deep breath and answered, "Because I can. So because I can, I feel like I should."

"But you couldn't always." It was more of a statement than a question.

"No. Radioactive mutant spider bite." Peter met her eyes to see if he could detect the apprehension he was terrified he was going to see. Instead he saw eyes that were drilling into him as if trying to see him, Peter.

"Ok. So the Stark internship?"

He grinned a little, "Fighting the occasional bad guy, but mainly working in the lab with Mr. Stark."

"So Stark picking you up today was really because you were sick?"

Leave it to MJ to deflate the fact that he was feeling a little bit better about his day. "Yes. He takes his role as mentor seriously." He frowned a little bit.

"There are worse mentors. Of course there are better ones too. What's with the frown?"

Peter wasn't sure why the words started pouring out of his mouth but they did, "I screwed up. He got me from school because I shouldn't have gotten sick. I have a healing factor because of the bite that takes care of bruises, cuts, broken bones. I haven't been sick since the bite. He freaked him out that I was all the sudden sick. Once they got my fever down a little I let it slip that maybe it had something to do with my ribs which freaked him out even more because then he found out about my stitching myself up and now he's being really nice."

"Wow. Ok, so let's start with the ribs and stitching yourself up."

MJ was remarkably calm which helped Peter focus. "When I was out patrolling last night I stopped a couple guys that were hassling some women. There was a little fight and one of them had a knife." Peter puffed out a breath and looked at MJ.

"Fight and knife. So, you were stabbed?"

He had to hand it to her, she was still really calm about the whole thing. It made it easier. "Fight which resulted in a couple bruised ribs and then one of them got me with the knife."

"So, you were stabbed."

"No, more of a slash." He shifted the phone in his hands and pulled up the edge of his shirt so she could see the faint line from where the laceration had been.

"Huh." Peter could see MJ studying the fading bruises and remaining scar before he tugged down his shirt. "You stitched yourself up? YouTube video?"

Peter nodded. People keep saying that like it was a bad thing. What else was he supposed to do? "So now Mr. Stark is being super nice. Nothing like when he yelled at me after the whole Ferry thing."

MJ narrowed her eyes, "So what are you worried about?"

"It's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's mad because I didn't tell him about the ribs or that I stitched up the gash."

"So he's worried about you."

Peter huffed. He knew she was on to something it was just weird. Weird that he was having this conversation with MJ and weird that it was possible that Tony Stark was worried about him.

"Look, Peter, the reality is that what you do is super dangerous and you have someone who can help you. You should let him. You should also let your friends help you. Ned said something about being the Guy In The Chair as he was trying to deny knowing anything about you being Spider-Man. I may not be the Guy In The Chair but if you ever need someone to talk to call me. I can even help stitch you up next time."

Peter wondered if he would ever stop being surprised when he looked at her expecting to see sarcasm but saw honesty instead. "Thanks MJ." He paused, trying to decide if he wanted to say what was in his head but his mouth opened anyway, "My life is weird. I feel bad bringing anyone else into it."

"Good thing you don't get to decide that then."

Ah, there's the MJ he knew. The one that did whatever she wanted to. He stifled a yawn as he tried to figure out how to respond. MJ took the decision from him.

"You should probably go to bed. You still look like you have a little bit of a fever. Call me tomorrow and let me know how things are going. Later."

And with that MJ hung up. And Peter stared at his phone. Maybe he was still unconscious in MedBay. It was the only explanation. Mr. Stark was acting weird. MJ was not acting like MJ. He plugged his phone in and stretched out on his bed. Usually he stared at the ceiling, mind racing too much to fall asleep. With everything that had happened today his mind should be racing but he was tired. "FRIDAY, can you turn the lights off please?" The lights dimmed until the were completely off. Peter didn't even realize his eyes had closed.

XXXXXXXXXX

After Peter headed to his room, Tony paced his bedroom. It was way too early for him to go to bed and he was way too keyed up to even try. "FRIDAY, what's Peter doing?"

"Peter just ended a phone call and has turned off his lights."

"Ok, if he gets up, let me know." Tony headed down to his labs. He had really enjoyed just eating dinner and watching a movie with the kid. The problem was he felt like he should have somehow grounded him, which was ridiculous since he wasn't his parent. Did mentors ground their mentorees? Of course Peter wasn't a normal, well, a normal anything. He flipped through the designs he had started while waiting for Peter's fever to come down. His mind kept shifting back to the fact that Peter again didn't feel like he needed to let him know he had gotten hurt. Maybe the kid felt like he couldn't tell him. It was that thought that kept him from losing his temper and doing something rash. After the whole Vulture thing, the one thing Tony had focused on was getting Peter to trust him. He thought they had made progress but then this happened. All he wanted was to keep him from getting himself seriously injured or worse. It was the 'worse' part that kept him up at night. And it was the reason why Peter had ridiculous features in his suit. Every scenario that Tony has ever faced equaled a feature. Every possible scenario Tony's brain could come up with equaled a feature. But he couldn't keep him safe and it drove him crazy. So many thoughts whirled through his head, scenarios that resulted in injury, ways to make him more effective, ways to get him to trust him, ways to get him to want help. He could feel his frustration mount and before he knew it the tablet was being hurled against the wall.

"Well, that was remarkably similar to a whisky glass being thrown." Rhodey stopped in the doorway of the lab and leaned against it. "Problems?"

"He watched a YouTube video to figure out how to stitch himself up. Apparently that was a better option than calling me and asking for help." Tony paced the floor stepping on broken bits of the tablet.

Rhodey watched Tony pace. "Asking for help isn't natural for him. You said May even told you that. Did you yell at him?"

Tony shook his head. "No. Thought that might bring out his stubborn streak. Last time we got into it, it did not end well." Tony thought back to the ferry incident. Of all the things he regretted, that might be one of the worst ones. "He's here all weekend. I told him he was going to have to fix his own suit and we're designing a watch like mine. I can download Karen into it and she can help monitor him."

Rhodey laughed. "I'm not sure you understand how punishment works. You just described the kid's idea of a perfect weekend."

Tony sighed, "I know. Somewhere in there I've got to figure out how to set some ground rules. I thought I had enough in Karen's protocols but somehow he convinced an AI that getting hurt in a knife fight did not require a call to FRIDAY."

"You'll figure it out. I hear you're a genius." Rhodey pulled himself away from the door of the lab. "I'll come say hi to the kid in the morning. Make sure you clean up the glass. Don't want SpiderKid cutting himself."


	6. I’m Fine

"Just so we have a baseline of what you consider 'fine' - getting three broken ribs and a 3-inch gash that you felt was bad enough to watch a YouTube on how to stitch a wound and proceed to actually stitch yourself up Thursday night...does not constitute 'fine'". Tony crossed his arms and stared at the teen in front of him waiting for him to argue.

"I can see where maybe bleeding enough where it should be stitched might constitute 'not fine' but what am I supposed to do? Go to the hospital?" Peter crossed his arms, mimicking the man standing in front of him.

"Let's just focus on defining what's 'fine' before we start tackling the solutions." Tony's eyes locked with the kid, "The little scuffle you got into two weeks ago that resulted in minor bruising, that could be classified as 'fine'".

Eyes just as locked as the older man's in front of him, Peter challenged back, "So bruising is ok but blood isn't? Or is there a quantity limit. Or how about if it clots on it's own in less than ten minutes?"

Tony couldn't tell if Peter was being sarcastic or actually trying to assign limits and work it like an if-then statement. He decided it didn't matter if he could get the kid to agree to some guardrails without a fight. "No, I think you're on to something, if it hasn't stopped bleeding in ten minutes it's not fine. But, if you lose a certain quantity it's definitely not fine and you're not giving it ten minutes."

Peter pursed his lips and let out what Tony could only describe as a tiny growl. Sarcasm it was then. "Ok kid, here's another example, getting a warehouse dropped on you. Not 'fine'".

Peter almost took a step back, startled that Mr. Stark knew about the warehouse but stopped himself from saying anything or moving and hoped that Mr. Stark hadn't noticed. One look at his eyes told him that he did notice because the eyes that had been playfully arguing with him over the definition of 'fine' had a little bit of sadness in them now. Sucking in a breath, Peter quietly replied "Agreed, not 'fine'".

"Pete, I'm not trying to treat you like a child. If Rhodey didn't tell anyone he had to stitch himself up I'd get onto him too."

A stifled snort brought both of their attention to the man sitting at the table, quietly enjoying a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats and enjoying the fact that the kid was obviously a match for Tony. "Keep me out of this." Rhodey shoved another spoonful of cereal in his mouth as he continued watching Tony and Peter spar over the definition of "fine".

Peter turned back towards his mentor. He really didn't want to fight with the man. He loved spending time with him. Deciding to try to alter the course a little, he took a different approach. "So when I faced down the drones at the Stark Expo with nothing more than an Iron Man mask?"

Now it was Tony's turn to be caught off guard. The look on his face prompted Peter to continue, "You probably don't remember. I was pretty young and assumed I could take on the drones just like you. Probably not fine either. You landed next to me and blasted the drone to bits and said...”

Tony interrupted, "Nice work, kid." His voice was soft and low. "That was you?"

Rhodey stood up, "See kid, perfect example of a time when you needed backup." It was also the perfect time to give Tony a little bit of backup. He could tell Peter's revelation had rocked him a little bit. "You know if Tony hits the jets on the suit he can be in the city in less than 10 minutes. And, you know I split time between DC, New York, and here. FRIDAY always knows where I am. If you need help, you can ask."

Peter shook his head, "It's not always that easy. Usually when something happens it escalates in a matter of seconds not minutes."

Tony shoved Peter's revelation about the Stark Expo into the corner of his brain labeled 'Deal With It Later' and jumped back into the conversation. "That's a good point. How about I stash one of the suits somewhere close. If you need backup immediately, Rhodey or I can pilot remotely. At least buy you some time until I can get there."

Peter looked at Tony in exasperation, "Really? Where are you going to stash a suit?"

"I'll check and see what I still own in the city. If I have to buy something I will. Which actually isn't a bad idea either. A safe house of sorts. It's probably good to have something off the books like that. FRIDAY, start looking for something suitable."

"Sure thing Boss.“

Tony looked at Peter and recognized the deer in headlights look. "Pete, I know you want to handle everything by yourself and you're more than capable."

"Then why are you talking about buying a safe house in the city and stashing a suit there so you can fly to the rescue any time I go up against a bad guy. Do you know how freaked out people will be when Iron Man flies in to save Spider-Man from a bicycle thief?"

Tony shook his head, "I wouldn't assist you on a bicycle theft. I know you can handle those. It's the bigger stuff I'm worried about."

"So your telling me that you're not going to over react?" Peter was skeptical at best. More concerned that he was going to be patrolling Queens with an empty Iron Man suit at worst.

"I will abide by ground rules if you do." Tony was more than willing to abide by rules if Peter would. It would probably kill him but he'd do it if that what it took.

Another frustrated growl escaped from Peter. "Deal. Let's start with back up."

Tony immediately volleyed a list, "Alien tech, Aliens, guns, and if you're out numbered 3 to 1."

"Alien tech and Aliens yes. Guns no. Outnumbered 8 to 1." Peter crossed his arms and waited for the rebuttal.

"You're not bullet proof and neither is the suit. Wouldn't it be helpful to have a shield?" Tony didn't think the kid would agree to it but wanted it on the table.

"I can web them up before they get a shot off. I've done it before."

Tony frowned but knew he wasn't going to win on guns. "If I agree I reserve the right to put it back on the list if you ever get shot."

Peter's brows creased. "Agreed. But I'm not giving in on the outnumbered part."

Tony's frown deepened. There was a reason Pepper negotiates all of the contracts for SI. "Ok, but I also reserve the right to revisit. So, you call for backup if you encounter aliens, alien tech, and if you're outnumbered 8 to 1. I get to have a safe house in the city where I can house a suit that can act as backup if I can't get there. We both reserve the right to revisit as conditions change."

"Agreed."

Tony wasn't sure if he was coming out on top of this negotiation or not but decided to keep going. "Injuries. I get a call on any injuries but I only get the right to act if you have been shot, knocked unconscious, bleeding freely for 10 minutes, or have loss a certain amount of blood. Oh, and I want broken bones too."

Peter frowned, "I break ribs all the time. That's ridiculous."

"The fact that you just said that and don't see something wrong with it makes that one non-negotiable. In fact all of them are non-negotiable." The look on Tony's face said take it or leave it although he wasn't 100% sure what he was going to do if Peter pushed back.

"Clarification on your actions if you're called. I think we're in agreement that I cannot go to a hospital so what's the plan?"

"Safe house will have medical capabilities. The rest of it is to be determined. To be honest I don't know what the answer is because anyone else we bring into this compromises you further."

"Ok, I tentatively agree to the injury protocol pending the plan to handle the injuries."

"So we're agreed?" It was guard rails Tony could live with if Peter would keep his end of the bargain.

Peter stuck his hand out to shake on it, "Agreed."

Tony shook his hand, "Pepper will be proud of your negotiation skills. Why don't we start working on something a little more fun like your suit or the watch?"

Peter groaned, "I'm assuming I can't talk you out of the watch?"

Throwing his arm around Peter's should Tony turned him towards the elevator, "It'll be the coolest watch ever."

Rhodey ate another bite of his cereal and yelled after them, "You know you could always make me a watch too."

Tony called over his shoulder, "I made you a suit."

Rhodey retorted, "You made the kid a suit too.”


	7. Suit Repairs

Peter stretched his suit out on the work table and looked at the hole in the side.

"So, how are you planning on fixing it?" Mr. Stark leaned against the counter behind him and crossed his arms.

"Well, I was planning on you telling me what to do but I'm getting the distinct impression that you're not going to help much." Peter reached into a drawer and pulled out a pair of tweezers and started to pull the filaments away from the torn fabric so they could be reset. He glanced up at Mr. Stark and saw that he was intently watching him pull the filaments. Looking back at the suit his eyes traced the filament until it hit a junction. "I need to rerun the entire length, right?"

"Yes. On all of them." Tony smiled at the groan Peter let out. "Maybe next time you'll avoid getting stabbed."

"If I had been stabbed the damage would have been much smaller. It was a gash and did way more damage than a simple stabbing." Peter pulled the filament free from its termination junction and dropped it on the table next to his suit. "This sucks. You make it look so easy when you do it."

"Which tells me I should have had you doing this before now."

Peter focused on the next damaged filament. "FRIDAY, can you turn on some music?"

The familiar playlist started playing in the background. Tony smiled as Peter started humming quietly to AC/DC. He walked over to another workstation and started working on some of the more tedious aspects of creating Peter a watch. He already had it planned out in his head. He'd let Peter customize it when he was done with the suit and then they could work on both the suit programming as well as the watch programming. Getting Karen into it was going to take the better part of the day but it was something FRIDAY could handle once they had it set up. The part he wanted to focus on was the housing on the underneath side that would eventually store the nanobots once he figured out how to stabilize the tech. 

The nanotechnology was frustrating. He knew what he wanted it to do but he couldn't stabilize it. After Germany he realized how vulnerable his suit was. Granted, he didn't think there were that many micro sized individuals running around but now that the technology existed outside of Hank Pym it was only a matter of time. In his head he saw his Iron Man armor forming around him seamlessly. That wasn't necessarily the problem. He had figured that part out. The part that was being troublesome was it maintaining integrity when hit. It tended to fall apart which definitely was not going to work in the middle of a battle. Web shooters were going to be easier to manage but he still wanted to solve the integrity issue. When he solved the problem with the Iron Man suit he could apply the same tech to the Iron Spider suit.

He had most of the structure of the watch complete when he heard Peter yell "Done" from the other side of the room. Tony looked up and saw Peter with his arms raised in the air victoriously. Chuckling he walked over to the table to inspect Peter's work. He had meticulously removed all of the damaged filaments and lined them up next to the suit. For a teenager he actually kept his work space orderly. Even more so than Tony did.

"Ok, let's get the fabric repairs started and we'll go let Dr. Cho check you out before we start programming."

Peter let our another groan but picked up the suit and carried it over to the machine that fabricated most of the materials Tony used. It was like a souped up version of a 3-D printer. Once they set everything and started the repairs Tony pushed Peter out of the lab and towards MedBay.

Dr. Cho met them at the MedBay doors as they walked through. Peter assumed that FRIDAY gave her a heads up. "How are you feeling Peter?" Slapping a monitor on his wrist his vitals popped up on the closest monitor. "Temperature is back to normal. How are the bruises and ribs?"

Peter pulled up the corner of his shirt so Dr. Cho could examine his ribs. He had checked this morning, all of the bruising had disappeared overnight and his ribs felt fine.

"That is amazing." Standing back up she made notes on her tablet. "I've created a baseline IV cocktail that can be used anytime he's injured. It's basically what we used yesterday. We'll monitor the results and tweak it if needed. For now, you have a clean bill of health. Try to keep it that way."

Tony smirked at Peter. "We spent part of the morning trying to figure that out. We've solved everything other than how to get Pete medical treatment when he's in the city and it can't wait until he gets here."

Helen interjected immediately. "Hospitals are not an option. Not only would he be exposed but treatment they might give him not knowing his unique situation could actually be dangerous." Helen looked at Tony. She had known him long enough to know that he had at least a partial plan.

"Part of our agreement is that I get to have a safe house in the city. I can equip it with medical facilities but the warm body aspect is a problem."

"I have a couple suggestions. We can rig an auto IV. That'll go a long way towards the minor injuries. Obviously if I'm in town I can meet him there. When I'm not, there are a couple alternatives. Although you're probably not going to approve of them."

"I'm not thrilled about revealing his identity but I'm more worried about not having a plan in place."

"There's a nurse. Her name is Claire Temple. She's a friend of some of the other New York vigilantes."

Peter's face made it perfectly clear that he didn't see himself in the same bucket as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen or any of the others.

"Relax Spider kid, she didn't call you a vigilante. How well do you know her?"

"I've met her a couple times. I can set up a meet. She understands the necessity of keeping a secret identity a secret."

"Ok, set it up. When I have the location for the safe house I'll let you know." Looking back at Peter he added "He's cleared?"

"He's cleared." Helen closed her tablet and stepped back as Peter jumped off the table.

"Thanks Dr. Cho!"

Grinning at Peter's enthusiasm, Tony turned and followed Peter out of MedBay. "Why don't we grab lunch before heading back to the lab." Tony knew that he had the inclination to skip most meals in lieu of working in the lab and it was not a habit he wanted Peter to pick up, especially since his metabolism burned through everything including meals so fast.

XXXXXXXXXX

They raided the refrigerator and pulled out all the fixings for sandwiches. Tony, with a modest sandwich and an apple, was still astonished at the amount of food Peter could put away and still be on the small side. "Call and check in with your aunt before we get back into the lab. You know both of us will forget when we get down there."

Peter grinned at the truth in the statement and scrolled through his text messages, sending a quick text to Ned and MJ. As he sent the texts he remembered his conversation with MJ last night and looked up at Mr. Stark. "Oh...MJ knows."

Tony stared at Peter. "What do you mean MJ knows?"

"She said, 'I know you're Spider-Man'. Apparently she figured it out months ago." Peter couldn't tell if Mr. Stark was mad or concerned.

"So in the span of one day the number of people who know your secret identity increased by two? And we're talking about adding another?" At the rate they were going the kid would be outed as Spider-Man within a year. He started cycling through the additional security he would need to put into place for that eventuality. The safe house idea was starting to have multiple purposes. It would also give Peter a place to hide if needed.

"MJ won't let it slip. There's really less risk of her saying something than Ned."

Tony contemplated the fact that Peter's closest friends knew his secret. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing if they could keep the secret. He had spent a little bit of time with Ned and had researched him after the Vulture incident. Ned was Peter's best friend. The problem was he was still in awe of the whole superhero thing. He could be a little excitable but had also proved to be good in an emergency. MJ was a different story. The girl was a little more private. No social media presence at all. Smart and to hear Peter talk more than a little self possessed, although the word Peter had used was 'scary'. He suspected it might be because he had a little crush on her but had never admitted it. Tony's brain short circuited a little as he realized the thought that had just casually come up in his mental conversation. He was well on his way to being fully involved in teenage drama and angst. When the hell had that happened? The thought also occurred to him that he didn't hate it. He wasn’t sure when in the hell that had happened either.

"Mr. Stark?"

Peter pulled Tony out of his daze. "We just need to make sure they both understand how much danger you'd be in if your identity is revealed by accident. If you decide down the road to have your own 'Iron Man' moment, what happens after can be controlled. Security measures can be put into place. If it happens by accident we'll be left scrambling."

"Ok. I don't think either of them would let it slip." Peter stood up and took his and Mr. Stark's empty dishes to the kitchen and loaded them in the dishwasher. He dialed May and held the phone on his shoulder as he put the dishes up.

Tony leaned back in his chair and watched Peter. It was comfortable. It dawned on him how much he liked having Peter around. Peter hung up the phone and walked out of the kitchen. "Ready to go to the lab?"

Tony stood up and smiled. "Of course."

As they entered the lab, Tony informed Peter he was not helping with the programming.

"But why?"

Tony smiled at what was very much the response he expected, "Because I would like for the programming to stick. You have a history of trying to circumvent protocols when you want to do something you think I won't approve of."

Peter knew he wasn't going to win, but forged ahead on the slight chance he could talk him into it, "But Mr. Stark, I thought you wanted me to learn how to repair my suit. Programming it is part of the repairs."

"Consider this to be your probation. You can start programming it when you've proven that you're not going to hack it. So while I reprogram the parts that you pulled and add the new protocol, you can start working on the watch." Tony pointed at the workstation where he'd left the watch.

Peter grumbled under his breath but turned and walked towards the other workstation. Tony waiting until Peter had made his way over to the other workstation before turning his back to pull new filaments out to finish. He had learned after the first time he had to make repairs Peter's suit to have most of the sections preprogrammed so all he had to do was swap them out and update. He'd replace them, then start the updates so he could rejoin Peter.

"Hey, Mr. Stark, what's this housing on the back?" Peter held the watch up, looking across the room.

"Nanobot housing." Tony attached the last filament and hooked the suit up to start updating. Walking over to Peter he pulled up a hologram display that showed the watch. "Slide your arm in."

Peter slid his arm through the hologram so the watch fastened around his wrist. Tony tapped part of the screen and they watched a web shooter form. "Whoa." Peter moved his arm around looking at the holographic web shooter from all sides.

"Cool, huh." Tony was pleased with himself. The look on the kid's face was priceless. "I still have some kinks to work out but it's almost ready."

Still manipulating the hologram, Peter asked "what kind of kinks?"

Tony flicked the holographic web shooter, "stability for one." The web shooter collapsed but immediately reformed. "The idea is to give you access to your web shooters at all times. He pulled up another display that showed a simple metal band. "Other wrist. This way you'll always have them."

"Ok, I take it back. You can put a tracker in it if it means I get nanobot web-shooters."

Tony chuckled, "You can help me finish it then. Meanwhile, here's what I was thinking." The hologram disappeared and Tony pulled up a list. "It obviously has biometric data, we'll load Karen in so you have access to her. I think you should also consider a panic button. Something unobtrusive that you can call for help without anyone knowing."

Peter thought through different aspects of what he might be able to use the watch for. He was so excited about the possibility of having access to his web-shooters at all times that he was hard pressed to come up with other ideas. "Hey, if you have the ability to track me, can I have the ability to track others? When I was trying to track down the Vulture I used one of the trackers and then monitored it with the web shooter. Can I use this the same way?"

Tony shrugged, "Sure. Like this?" Tony pulled up the hologram again and displayed the same 3-D image the suit's web-shooter had.

"Yes, but can it also be unobtrusive? Maybe a 2-D map on the face?" Peter took both hands and flattened the holographic image and splashed it onto the holographic watch face.

"Ok, show off. You're getting the hang of it. What else?" Tony loved that Peter used his technology so naturally.

"I don't know. Karen routes any calls and texts when I'm in the suit, will it do the same here?"

Tony nodded, "I guess we should probably actually make it a watch." He flipped a watch face on the hologram.

Peter grinned. "Looks good. What do we do now?"

"Well, Friday can upload most of the subroutines. They're not that different from mine. When she's done, we'll just tweak a few things. By the time you head home on Monday, you'll have a new watch." Tony swiped the hologram away. "FRIDAY, start upload. And pull up the nanotech data.


	8. Up Too Late

Pepper could hear Tony's voice as the elevator doors slid open and smiled. She cocked her head to the side as another voice responded, fully engaged in a discussion about thermodynamics and wind sheer. Both figures skidded to a stop as they rounded the corner and saw Pepper standing next to the kitchen island.

"Pepper! I didn't think you were going to make it back until tomorrow?" Tony moved towards Pepper giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Pete and I were going to order Thai."

Pepper smiled at the Tony and Peter. They were cut from the same cloth. Both completely filthy from working in the lab but both almost giddy with excitement. "Thai sounds good."

"FRIDAY, order from that Thai place we all like. Everyone's favorites." Tony looked over at Peter. "Sport, you have engine grease on your shirt. Go change and clean up."

Peter grinned, "Miss Potts, it's good to see you. Hope your trip was good."

"Thank you." Pepper replied with a smile watching Peter retreat down the hall. Turning to Tony she studied his grease covered shirt. "You have grease on you too. Why don't we both change and you can fill me in on what you two have been doing."

Once they were in their bedroom Tony stripped off his T-shirt, throwing it into the hamper. Pepper kicked off her heals, scooped them up and carried them into her closet. "I thought Peter had the flu? I stopped by the MedBay on the way in since you told me if I came home while Peter was here I had to get a flu shot. Helen said there wasn't a need."

Tony tugged a clean shirt over his head. "Spider took care of it. Did she tell you about the rest of it?"

"Something about stitches and she said to ask you about a safe house?" Her voice was slightly muffled from the closet. "Who had to get stitches and who is getting a safe house? And why?"

"Peter stitched himself up but we've come to an agreement. I get a call from him in certain cases and I get a safe house in the city to house a suit." Tony walked out of the bathroom after scrubbing grease from his hands. "Pepper, you should have heard the negotiations. He was masterful." Tony stretched out on the bed waiting for Pepper to finish.

"Tony, I know your track record with negotiations. Plus, it's Peter. Somehow I'm not sure you came out on top."

Tony looked towards the closet. "I feel like there's a question in there somewhere."

"No, just an observation. What are you two working on?" She exited her closet wearing loose pants and shirt.

"Trying to make the nanotechnology work. It's not. We ran into a roadblock so we tore apart one of the older Iron Man suits."

Pepper laughed and walked out of the room with Tony trailing behind her. "What? It was instructional."

Peter was retrieving a Gatorade from the refrigerator by the time Pepper and Tony returned to the kitchen. "FRIDAY said food will be here in 20 minutes."

"Good. That gives us time to catch up. How's school?" Pepper sat down in one of the stools and looked at Peter.

"It good. We have an academic decathlon meet next week but it's local. Ned texted me the list of work I missed." Looking over at Tony, he added, "Do you have a laptop I can borrow? There's a couple things I can't do on my phone."

"Of course. We'll grab it in the morning and you can knock it out. I was thinking tomorrow you could get in some training. I've got a couple things I want you to try. Feel up for it?" Tony leaned on the kitchen bar. He thought the kid was over the flu but he still scrutinized him as he watched his face light up at the prospect of training.

Pepper interjected, "You absolutely have to finish your homework first."

"Yes, ma'am".

Tony snickered at Peter's reply which resulted in Pepper throwing an apple at Tony. She picked up one and tossed it at Peter. "You two need something other than take out."

Peter caught the apple and proceeded to play with it. He made it stick to his palm the released it to catch it with the same hand. After the third time doing it he realized Mr. Stark was staring at him. "Sorry." He took a bite of the apple and realized Mr. Stark was still staring at him. "What?"

"You control when and what you stick to, right?"

Peter nodded, "It's usually subconscious unless I'm playing around with it." He stuck the apple to his palm again, then released it and caught it.

Tony took another bite of his apple, letting the idea roll around in his head. If it worked it would be one of those paradigm shifting technologies. "There's a mental component. You control what it does."

Peter nodded and thought through what Tony had said. His eyes widened. "There's a mental component."

Tony jumped up, "Pepper, we'll be back." Knowing Peter was following he headed for the elevator.

XXXXXXXXXX

Rhodey walked into the lab with a bag of Thai food and dropped it on the table. "Just so you know Pepper has disowned both of you and I'm claiming one of your containers of food."

"We'll make it up to her." Tony didn't look up from the screen.

Peter had a pencil and was scribbling in a notebook. "I still don't know why it has to be you. They're my web-shooters."

Tony paused, "Seriously?"

Rhodey stared at the Tony and Peter who had almost identical looks on their faces, as if they couldn't believe the other had said what they had. He never thought when he suggested that Tony mentor Peter that he would actually just be creating a mini version of Tony. But that's exactly what had happened. "Ok, I don't know what you two are up to but I'm getting the feeling that it's going to end up being like when you destroyed your lab testing the Iron Man suit."

Tony turned his attention to Rhodey. "I did not destroy the lab."  
DUM-E beeped from the corner of the room. "Traitor." Tony glanced over at the robots. Picking up a container of food, he opened it, stuck a fork in it, and shoved it in front of Peter who absentmindedly put a forkful in his mouth.

Swallowing the bite and disagreement forgotten, Peter tapped the notebook, "Brain waves are going to be a tough interface although I read a study that supports the idea that brain waves are unique - like fingerprints so that eliminates a potential issue with someone else controlling it."

Tony nodded, "I think we can work out the interface. If we can make the uniqueness foolproof we can avoid the DNA imprinting. It's unlikely that anyone could decode it but I would prefer your DNA not be in any of it."

"If you're using brain waves you should be able to code them as electrical impulses. The interface is nothing more than electrical pairing."

Tony and Peter turned and stared at Rhodey.

"What? You two aren't the only smart people in the building. I do have a degree from MIT."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Pepper walked into the lab and took in the scene in front of her. Empty take out containers littered one workstation along with pieces of some kind of machine and empty Gatorade bottles. Tony and Rhodey we're pulling wires out of a machine and Peter was crouched on the ceiling watching what they were doing. "Do you three know what time it is?"

"11ish?" Tony pulled a wire sending a spark up.

"It's 2am." Tony and Rhodey froze. Tony glanced up at the ceiling. "Pete, you need to be in bed."

"You all need to be in bed." Tony and Rhodey looked over at Pepper who was glaring at them with her arms crossed.

Rhodey glanced over at Peter who had quietly slipped down to the floor and was standing next to him. "Come on Spider-Kid, I'll tuck you into bed."

"You know I've patrolled later than this before."

Rhodey put his hand on Peter's shoulder guiding him through the door of the lab. "Stop talking. It's making it worse."

Pepper waited for the door to close before she turned back to Tony. He cut her off before she could say anything. "I know. I should not have lost track of time and kept Peter down here this long. We just got caught up."

Pepper studied Tony's face. "He's 15. I get that he has the whole Spider-Man thing and does stuff that most 15 year olds shouldn't but you cannot pass on your bad habits and losing track of time in the lab is one of them."

Tony started to protest but closed his mouth when Pepper put her hand up. “I’m serious Tony. You need to be more responsible around him. I know you’re making an effort but I also know how you are.” She slid an arm through his and pulled him out of the lab to the elevator. “I love the way you are around him so don’t take this as anything other than what it’s intended to be...a reminder that you’re his role model.” Pepper pushed Tony out of the elevator. “FRIDAY, enact all sleeping protocols.”


	9. Homework

Peter stretched his legs out under the covers and rolled onto his back. He opened his eyes to a comforting darkness and nestled back into the covers. "FRIDAY, what time is it?"

"It's 10:45am"

Peter looked at his darkened windows. "FRIDAY, it's still dark outside."

"Your windows have been darkened as part of the Sleeping Baby Protocol."

Peter clinched his jaw. Sleeping Baby Protocol? What the hell. "FRIDAY, what's the Sleeping Baby Protocol?"

"The Sleeping Baby Protocol is a sub routine that reduces the ambient temperature in a room, blocks light from any windows, and reduces sound intrusion. All changes are designed to create the optimum sleeping environment."

Peter muttered under his breath. "I am not a baby. I cannot believe he did this."

"Peter, Boss did not enact the Sleeping Baby Protocol. Miss. Potts did when she came back upstairs from the lab last night. Although I do have standing orders to enact the protocol when you're sleeping at the compound."

Peter sighed, it was hard to get mad at Miss. Potts. "FRIDAY, lights at 50% and can you turn off the Sleeping Baby Protocol?"

His lights turned on and the window darkening faded. The light wasn't enough to hurt his eyes so he pushed back the covers he swung his feet over the side. His stomach was growling. "FRIDAY, where is everyone?"

"Miss Potts is in her office downstairs, Colonel Rhodes is in the gym, Boss is in his room."

Peter scooted off the bed. He could grab something to eat without worrying about changing first.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony walked out of his bedroom, shaking his still damp hair. He chuckled to himself when he saw Peter sitting at kitchen bar with a giant bowl of cereal. Pajama bottoms, t-shirt, and completely untamed brown curls sticking up at random angles. He very rarely saw Peter with his hair not tamed. He never remembered just how out of control it could be. It made him look younger which is probably why he went to extremes to get rid of the curls. Knowing it would aggravate him, he reached over as he walked by and ruffled his hair. Peter would have known he was next to him so it surprised him that he didn't dodge out of the way. "Get enough sleep kid?"

"You know, I always wondered why I sleep better over here than I do at home. I had chalked it up to less noise and a bigger bed. Turns out it's because you turn on the Sleeping Baby Protocol every time I sleep over." Peter put another spoonful of cereal in his mouth.

"Hey, I use the Sleeping Baby Protocol. And, you can blame Pepper for the name. It's an old sub-routine from Jarvis. I think she named it that because she was also accusing me at the time of being childish." Tony shrugged and poured himself a bowl of cereal. "Pepper said she put a laptop in your room and you're supposed to finish all of your homework before stepping foot off this floor."

Peter nodded as he swallowed the bite of cereal. "I don't have much. Two chapters in English Lit, a little bit in math, and I think some physics."

"I doubt you need help with any of it but tell FRIDAY to get me if you do." Tony shrugged, "Or, FRIDAY could probably help to but don't let her do your work for you. Sometimes she can be a little too helpful."

Peter laughed, "Karen can be a little overly helpful too. I don't think any of it is too hard. It'll maybe take me an hour or two tops." He paused before continuing, "Are you going down to the lab?"

Tony shook his head frowning, "I've been banned from the lab. Something about punishment for keeping you up too late. I will be in my office going over SI paperwork."

Part of Peter was glad Tony wasn't going to keep working on the nanotechnology without him but the other part felt bad, "2am isn't that late. I've stayed out patrolling later than that."

"I think it's more that she doesn't want my bad habits rubbing off on you. Which I wholeheartedly support." Tony looked at the kid sitting in front of him who looked much younger than his 15 years. "Finish your homework and we'll do some training this afternoon."

XXXXXXXXXX

Homework took longer than Peter thought it would. Mr. Stark pulled him out of his room for lunch and then sat at the dining room table with him as he finished his Physics homework. Peter smiled as he listened to Mr. Stark's exasperation at why he had to go through the tedious and time consuming act of showing his work on stuff that he obviously knew.

"You know you could probably skip a few grades. Heck, you could probably already get into MIT."

"Mr. Stark, I like school. I like my friends at school. Plus, May never wanted me to skip grades because I was so small. She thought it would just 'cause problems'." Peter shrugged as he gathered up his homework. "Plus it gives me another couple years to figure out how I'm paying for college."

Peter walked out of the room to return everything to his bedroom leaving Tony sitting at the table, musing over what Peter had just said. Tony knew without a doubt he would pay the kids' college tuition. He also knew Peter well enough at this point that telling him that outright would not go over well. He had similar conversations with May. It was ridiculous that she worked as much as she did. He had offered, well everything. He had contemplated buying their entire apartment building and dropping everyone's rent to an insanely low amount but ultimately came to the conclusion that it probably wouldn't have gone over well. Plus Pepper brought up some kind of legal aspect about rent control and regulations.

"Hey, are you coming?" Peter called from the elevator.

"Yeah kid, on my way."


	10. Change of Status

Peter could feel the flames flickering against his back. Wrapping one arm tightly around the tiny child in his arms he flicked a web out through the already broken window and swung through it tucking his chin against the child wrapped in his arm. He could hear the upper floors of the building collapsing behind him and the screams coming from below him. He landed lightly on his toes next to the fire truck and unwrapped his free arm from around the child he had swung with from the burning building. He gently placed the child on the ground and crouched to look at him. "Are you ok buddy?" 

The little boy looked at him, soot covering his cheeks. "Spider-man, that was awesome! Can we swing again?" The little boys mother finally reached him, pulling the young boy into her arms. "Spider-man, I don't know how to thank you for saving him!" She had tears in her eyes as she hugged the little boy tightly.

“No problem ma'am. Glad I was nearby!" Reaching over and scruffing the boy's hair he replied to his question, "No more swinging tonight buddy. Stay safe!" With that he flicked his wrist and swung to the roof of a neighboring building. He looked back when he heard cheering and gave a little wave before swinging to the next building and landing on the roof. Sitting down he sucked in a deep breath and watched he flames start to subside as the fire fighters started winning the fight.

"Peter, incoming text from MJ." A smile spread across Peters face, "Thanks Karen, put it up on the HUD and can you run diagnostics. The suit seems off.

_"Are you okay?"_

_"You're all over the news"._

_"Good job but you better not be hurt."_

Peter's smile faded a little at the rapid fire texts.

_"I'm fine. What do you mean all over the news?"_

Before MJ could respond, Karen's even voice piped through Peter's ears. "Peter, suit integrity is at 89%." Sighing again he responded, "I'm scheduled to go work in the lab with Mr. Stark sometime this weekend. We can fix it then. Can you turn the heater on? It's a little chilly."

__

"Peter, it's 45 degrees and the heater as well as most of the surveillance options were damaged by the heat." Before he could respond, Karen continued, "Incoming call from Mr. Stark. Would you like it on your HUD?" Frowning slightly, Peter wondered why Mr. Stark was calling. He thought he was tied up in DC until mid day tomorrow.

__

"Hey kid! FRIDAY sent me the news footage of your save tonight. Great job! You looked good! Anything broken?"

__

Peter could tell he was either still at his meeting or had just left. Why was FRIDAY sending him news footage? Focusing, Peter responded "I think I fried something in the suit. Karen ran diagnostics. Heater and surveillance are down plus some other systems."

__

"Kid, I meant you. Are you ok? Nothing burned, nothing broken?"

__

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine."

__

"Your definition of fine or my definition of fine?"

__

"Yours. Nothing broken, no blood, no burns. Just a little cold."

__

"Ok Pete, have Karen send FRIDAY the diagnostics and we'll tee up repairs tomorrow afternoon. I get back in right before you're out of school so why don't I pick you up?".

Peter gave up arguing with Mr. Stark a while back. "Sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Kid, call it a night and get somewhere you can warm up."

Peter glanced at the texts from MJ. "I'll swing by MJ's and change, her parents are at a movie and she's only a few blocks from here. Ned's got relatives visiting so there's no way I'd go unnoticed."

"Whatever. If your body temp doesn't start rising in 15 minutes I'm sending a suit for you." Tony paused and took off his glasses. "Pete, I'm proud of you. You really did good tonight." He paused again. "You and MJ are still just friends, right? I don't have to be worried about unsupervised teenagers?"

Turning slightly red under the mask, Peter grinned at Mr. Stark. "Just friends. Thanks Mr. Stark. I'm headed to MJ's now. See you tomorrow."

"Karen, text MJ and ask if it's ok if I stop by and change." Peter glanced over at the text stream and saw her quick "yes" and headed that way.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter landed on the fire escape outside MJ's apartment and tapped lightly on the window. A moment later the window flew open and MJ's face appeared in the shadows of the room. "You know this is weird, right? Usually boys sneak into girls bedrooms to mess around when the parents are gone and not because the heater went out in their multimillion dollar superhero suit." 

Peter threw a leg over the window sill and pulled himself into the apartment dropping his backpack on the floor and pulling his mask off. "Trust me, I know my life is not normal." He took a moment and looked around MJ's bedroom. Comfortingly it was a lot like he had imagined it. It suited her. He dropped his mask on the bookshelf and looked back at her, shivering a little with the open window to his back.

MJ wrinkled up her nose. "You smell like a fire. There's no way I can explain that so here...". She shoved a towel into his hands. "Bathroom is through there. Hot water will probably warm you up faster anyway." She stepped aside so he could walk past her.

Chagrined, he took the towel and mumbled "sorry" as he headed to the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Tapping the spider on the front of his suit it released and he pulled it off. Holding it up he grimaced at the burn marks on the suit. Folding it pulled his clothes out and sat them on the counter and reached into the shower and turned on the hot water.

MJ stared at Peter's back as he walked to the bathroom. If she thought too hard about it the whole situation was surreal. But, she didn't like normal and Peter was the furthest thing from normal. She sighed and looked back at the window to shut it. As she pulled it down she noticed the mask. Curiosity got the better of her and she picked it up and ran her fingers over the outside texture. Before she thought any more about it she pulled it over her head.

"Hello MJ. It's nice to finally talk to you." Karen's soft voice rang clearly in her ears. Peter had told her about Karen but to experience it in person was totally different. "Hi? Um, Karen, right?"

"Yes." Karen replied expectantly.

"Peter said he wasn't injured but he tends to hide his injuries. Can you confirm that he's not hurt?"

"Yes, MJ. Peter did not sustain any injuries tonight. He did quite well rescuing people from the building. Now that he's able to warm up he should have no lingering effects."

MJ thought she detected a hint of pride when Karen was talking about Peter, but that was silly. AI's didn't do that, right?

"MJ, Mr. Stark has various protocols set up to ensure Peter's safety. One of which is the "I'm not fine" protocol. If Peter is injured during a patrol Mr. Stark is notified so he can react accordingly. Would you like to be added to the notification list? I could text you if Peter sustains an injury. This would exclude life threatening injuries since that is handled via a different protocol."

MJ hadn't expected the AI to be so forthcoming. When Peter has talked about her he did so as if she were an actual human and now MJ understood why. "Yes please." She didn't want to ask too many questions in case it prompted the AI to talk to Peter or Mr. Stark about it. "Thank you Karen. I'm going to take the mask off now. It was nice to talk to you."

MJ pulled the mask off and looked towards the bathroom door. She could hear the water turning off. She brought the mask into the kitchen with her and started to make hot chocolate. The few study sessions she, Ned, and Peter had, he had always picked hot chocolate when offered. He never went the coffee route like she typically did. By the time she was done with the hot chocolate he was exiting the bathroom fully dressed toweling off his hair. His curls that were normally tamed were flopping across his forehead. They were cute. She reached over and grabbed the towel from his hand exchanging it for a mug of hot chocolate.

"Thanks." Peter took the hot chocolate and took a sip sighing as the warmth hit his mouth. Even with a hot shower he was still a little chilled. He picked up the mask of stuffed it into his backpack that he had brought with him from the bathroom.

"Go sit down. You still look cold and you're not leaving until you warm up some more." MJ picked up her mug of hot chocolate and followed him into the living room, sitting on the couch, gesturing for him to sit. "So spiders don't thermoregulate the way a human does. Does that mean you have trouble regulating your temperature now?"

Peter wrinkled his nose and thought about it. "It takes me longer to warm up and cool down than it used to but I think it's also related to my metabolism." He glanced over at MJ. Talking about spider stuff with MJ was weird. He didn't want her to think he was weird. Which he was. He frowned and looked down at his mug of hot chocolate and finished it as a distraction.

__

"Peter, get out of your head. I'm not asking because I think it's weird. I'm asking so I know how to help you." MJ sat her mug on the table and leaned over to look him in the eye. "I don't think you're weird."

__

Peter looked up at her, not knowing how to respond. MJ reached over and took the mug from his hands and sat it on the table. Instead of sitting back down, she leaned over and kissed him.

__

It was 100% not what Peter expected.

__

MJ sat back and looked at Peter, "Don't make this weird."

__

Peter grinned. "Out of everything in my life that is weird this is not one of them." Leaning forward he kissed her.

__

XXXXXXXXXX

__

Peter thought he heard a faint beeping but all he could focus on was MJ. He had no desire to stop what they were doing. MJ finally pulled away and grabbed his wrist. "Your watch is annoying." Peter looked down and tapped the face to see the message.

_”Pete, are you ok? Your heart rate just went through the roof."_

Hoping he wasn't quite as red as he felt, he tapped a quick message out. _"I'm fine."_

_"212 beats per minute is not fine."_

__

Wishing he was not having this conversation now but he knew that Mr. Stark would over react and an Iron Man suit would be making an appearance if he didn't give him an explanation he quickly tapped out a response.

_”Moving past just friends. Can we please not talk about this now. I'm not dying.”_

After a few seconds pause he saw the response and groaned inwardly. _"Be careful. I'm not ready for Spider Babies!"_ Peter stared at the message on his watch. He quickly tapped the screen again so MJ couldn't see it. Spider-babies. That was ridiculous.

__

As much as Peter would have liked to stay where he was, he and MJ both realized that her parents would be home soon and his curfew was rapidly approaching too. He still had to take the subway to make it home since he didn't trust the suit nor did he want to swing around in 45 degree weather without a functioning heater.

__

"Peter, promise me you won't make this weird tomorrow at school." MJ stood at the open door.

__

Peter shrugged and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "You know I'll be completely awkward about it so you might want to think up some ground rules."

__

MJ laughed. "Fine. Text me when you're on the subway."

__

XXXXXXXXXX

__

Peter opened the door of the apartment quietly in case May was asleep. He saw the light on in the kitchen and popped his head in the doorway. "Hey May, I'm home."

__

"I'm glad you’re home honey! How was your night?"

__

She obviously hadn't turned on the TV. He had even seen someone watching a replay on the subway. "It was good." He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a banana. "Saved a kid from a fire."

__

May turned around and scrutinized him, "You're not hurt, right?"

__

"I'm fine." It was starting to get a little annoying that everyone kept asking him if he was hurt. He knew somewhere in his brain that it's because they cared about his wellbeing but a tiny part of him kept thinking it was because they thought he couldn't handle things by himself. He pushed both thoughts back and finished the banana in two bites tossing the peel in the trash. "I'm heading to bed. See you in the morning. Love you May." Kissing her on the cheek, he headed for his room.

__

XXXXXXXXXX

__

Peter's alarm jarred him awake. He slammed his hand on his phone to shut it off, sending it skidding across his nightstand and onto the floor, alarm still ringing. For as great as his night ended, he had a terrible time sleeping. Maybe it was coming off of the adrenaline from the fire and then the surprise change of status with MJ that had left him tossing and turning all night. He didn't even remember what he dreamed about, all he knew was that it wasn't the nightmare about being crushed. It did leave him with anxiety sitting on his chest which was almost as bad as the building. Kicking the covers off he got up and silenced the alarm.  
He debated crawling back into bed but decided against it. 

__

Grabbing his backpack that he had thrown on the floor last night he pulled out his suit and looked at it again. He wasn't sure how he hadn't gotten burned. One entire shoulder was blackened. Folding it back up he put it in his backpack and checked to make sure he had all of his books before heading into the bathroom to try to do something with his hair which he knew was probably sticking up.

__

After spending 20 minutes trying to get the curls to flatten, he ended up leaving late and almost missing the train. He ran up the stairs as the first bell rang. He'd have time to find Ned and MJ before heading to his least favorite class English Lit. Opening his locker and sliding in his backpack, he heard Ned walking up behind him. He could also smell MJ's shampoo so he knew she was also there.

__

"MJ was just filling me in!" Ned's hushed tones made it seem suspicious.  
Peter shut his locker and looked at MJ with a panicked look. The ground rules were they weren't going to make a big deal out of it until they got more comfortable with it.

__

"The fire, dork." MJ gave him a look he couldn't quite read but he assumed it was something along the lines of 'you're an idiot'. She handed him a protein bar and turned to Ned. "You should look online and see if anyone has the news footage. Spider-Man looked good."

__

Peter opened the protein bar and took a bite. He didn't even think to grab something to eat when he was leaving this morning. He absentmindedly wondered if this is what MJ was going to do now...feed him.

__

"I'm going to the compound tonight to make repairs. There's a bunch of systems down." Peter finished the protein bar and gave MJ a look of thanks.

__

"Are you spending all weekend there?" MJ's question was innocent but Peter was 99% sure it wasn't.

__

"No, just tonight." The bell rang and the group parted, MJ heading to Chemistry and Ned and Peter heading to English Lit. Pulling out his phone he texted MJ _“Want to go to a movie tomorrow night?"_ He smiled at the quick response of _“Maybe"_. Dating was hard. Way harder than being a superhero

__


	11. Even More Changes

For as much as he was dragging at the beginning of the day, school actually passed remarkably fast. Before he knew it, the dismissal bell was ringing and he was climbing into the front seat of the now familiar Audi.

Peter could feel Mr. Stark scrutinizing him for injuries. "I told you I was fine."

"Yeah, but I finally had a chance to look at the diagnostics Karen sent and I'm not sure how you're fine." FRIDAY was driving so Tony didn't have to keep his eyes on the road. "Let me see."

Peter reached down and pulled the suit out of his bag. Unfolding it, he displayed the burned shoulder. "Yeah, to be honest I'm not sure how I didn't get burned at least a little."

Tony took the suit out of Peter's hands and looked at the burned area. He turned and eyed Peter's corresponding shoulder.

"Seriously. There's nothing." Peter pulled the arm of his shirt up and displayed the back of his shoulder.

"I think you lucked out. We need to look at making you fireproof." Tony pulled at one of the filaments and watched it disintegrate between his fingers. He folded the suit back up and handed it back to Peter. "So...MJ...do we need to have some kind of talk?"

Peter could feel his face turn what he was sure was a brilliant red. "No! We do not need to talk about this." He could see the amusement on Mr. Stark's face.

"Kid. You're 15. Enjoy it." Tony grinned at Peter's obvious discomfort.

"Mr. Stark, I swear if you tell me to stay in the grey area..."

Tony's grin turned into a full blown laugh. "Relax. Last time I'll mention it. Just know that if you need an adult male's input..."

"I can ask Colonel Rhodes." Peter's eyes twinkled in obvious enjoyment at ribbing Mr. Stark.

Tony quickly wiped the shocked look off his face. "Oh, kid...you have no idea who you're messing with."

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony rubbed his hand over his face. The more they looked at the suit the more obvious it was that it would be easier to just make a new one.

"But...it's my suit. And it's just one tiny area. We've made bigger repairs before."

Peter's voice had a sad, pleading tone, which Tony fully understood. Every time he upgraded to a new suit part of him felt like it was saying goodbye to a friend. He had made the comment before that he and the suit were one. There was a lot of truth to it and he knew what the kid was feeling.

"I know, but the bright side to a new suit is upgrades. Plus, you can have a hand in the design." He could tell Peter wasn't quite seeing the positive spin he was trying to put on the situation. "Come on, let me show you something."

Peter gave a mournful look at his suit and followed Mr. Stark to the elevator. They got off on a floor he hadn't been to before. It was in the area of the compound that access was occasionally granted to the public. It was somewhere near where Happy had taken Peter when he turned down being an avenger. Mr. Stark opened a door and waited for Peter to enter. "FRIDAY, lights"

Peter glanced around the room and his jaw dropped. Lights turned on through the expansive hall illuminating what he could only describe as an Avenger museum. Mr. Stark's original suit was on display as well as Captain America's. He could see one of Hawkeye's bows, Black Widow's gear, something that looked like it belonged to Thor. His brain short circuited a little and almost couldn't take in everything.

"It was Pepper's idea. To work on our PR image a little bit. Not sure how she's planning on making it work in light of the Accords and the fact that the rest of the team have warrants out for their arrest, it definitely won't be revealed any time soon, but...your suit can find a home here." Tony watched Peter's face as he took in everything.

"But, I'm not an Avenger."

"This isn't about being an Avenger. It's about heroes. And you most definitely are one of those." Tony couldn't read the expression on Peter's face but he thought he might have broken him. He could see the muscle in his jaw clinching a little bit. He knew it was something he did when he was had made a decision that he was going to do something. Same look he had when he got out of Toomes' car and Tony knew he had decided to go after him. Same look he got when he was presented with something in the lab he didn't understand.

Peter wasn't sure about everything Mr. Stark was saying but he understood the message. Everyone had to change. Mr. Stark's current Iron Man suit looked almost nothing like the earlier ones. It was less bulky and the nanotech they were working on now would make the next one even more streamlined. Looking around he realized he had forgotten what Captain America's original suit looked like. It also dawned on him that the Captain America he had fought in Germany was not the same Captain America depicted in front of him. And the Mr. Stark he knew now was not the Tony Stark that had built a crazy suit in a cave in Afghanistan. Everyone changes.

"So upgrades?" Peter looked up at Mr. Stark and smiled.

XXXXXXXXXX

Pepper walked out of the bedroom. She was going to kill Tony. Usually he was the one who woke up having a nightmare. And this one was entirely his fault but not in the usually manner. She made her way to the kitchen and realized she wasn't the only one in there. Peter stood in front of the open refrigerator staring aimlessly. "Peter, are you ok?"

He turned his head towards her, "Sorry if I woke you Pepper. Bad dream. I was thinking of making hot chocolate. Want some?" Peter reached into the refrigerator to pull out the milk. Unlike last night he completely remembered the dream that had woken him up.

Pepper reached past him, "Why don't I help. And you didn't wake me up."

A few minutes later they were both armed with hot chocolate and settled into the corners of the couch. Pepper looked over her mug at Peter. "Want to tell me what the dream was about."

"It's stupid. Something Mr. Stark said last night put a visual in my head that I cannot get rid of."

Pepper laughed, "Let me guess...spider-babies?"

Peter's eyes darted up, "You too?"

Pepper nodded. "You know I'm pretty sure that can't happen."

"I know. I mean the logical side of my brain knows that but the rest of my brain has now gotten carried away. We don't actually know what happened to me. We've studied it a little but it's like both of us are afraid of opening Pandora's box. What if it keeps mutating and I end up an actual spider. What if it means I can't ever have children. What if it means I can have children but they're even more mutated than I am. What if the radiation does something to people who are in close proximity to me for too long? I should just tell MJ we need to go back to the way things were."

Pepper put her mug on the side table. "Peter stop." Once she had his attention she continued, "Your Tony is showing."

"What?"

"Tony does what you just did all the time. It's part of what makes him such a wonderful innovator. He not only sees possibilities but he sees five steps beyond that possibility. It's allowed him to create all the things he has but it also gives him almost crippling anxiety at times. You're exactly like him - you just took what was meant to be a joke, albeit a horrible one, and took it five steps out." She waited for what she had said to sink in before continuing, "You're 15 years old. Enjoy it. Date MJ. Be careful, but you're both incredibly smart and I don't think that will be an issue. Ten or even twenty years from now if you want to talk about having kids, we can figure it out. But there is no reason for you to be stressing about that now."

Peter let what Pepper said roll around in his head for a moment. "Thanks Pepper. I guess it's a little ridiculous to worry so much about this."

"Definitely."

"Ok, I know why I had a bad dream about this, why did you?"

"No offense, but I'm not a fan of spiders. The mental image was just a little too much."

Peter laughed, "Pepper, if I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Of course sweetheart."

"I'm terrified of spiders. I mean full on arachnophobia. Even the tiny ones."


	12. I am NOT Fine

Peter crouched on the edge of the building, it was not the tallest by any means but it was up there. He had gotten over his fear of being up so high after Washington and found it relaxing now. The sounds from the streets below were muffled when he was up that high. It was nice. But it also meant he couldn't hear if someone was in trouble. Checking to make sure he had enough fluid in his web-shooters he took a running jump off of the edge of the building and free fell half the distance to the ground before shooting a web that caught on the building next to and propelled him above the streets. Man, he loved swinging through New York. 

He slowed down and followed movement with his eyes. New Yorkers were always rushing around but the sight that caught his attention wasn't the normal hustle and bustle. He counted five men, three ahead with two trailing. He watched the three in front dodge around cars. The two trailing figures were catching up. Peter followed watching the men run towards a less populated area. He knew the area well and knew the three lead men would be boxed in. Swinging ahead he perched on a light pole to watch. He had learned not to interfere until he knew more about what was going on. Mr. Stark had called it 'growth'.

Multiple things happened at one. Peter was quick but not quick enough. The short blonde guy being chased turned and pulled out what Peter thought at first was a gun. As he was getting ready to fire a web to jerk the weapon out of the man's hands, the tall red headed guy who had been doing the chasing pulled out his own weapon that most definitely was not a gun. Almost simultaneously, Peter had Karen in his ear, "Peter, that weapon is of alien origin. Calling Mr. Stark." Before Peter could respond, the weapon was fired at the short blond guy who all the sudden wasn't short and blonde. He was green. And not human.

"Holy Shit!" Peter froze for a moment to take in the scene below him.

"Kid, that is not the way to answer the phone if you don't want to give me a heart attack."

Mr. Stark's voice prompted him to move. Firing webs at everyone and jumping to the ground he managed to snag some part of everyone to slow them down. Which also brought their attention to him. "Mr. Stark...aliens...I am NOT fine or whatever the hell you called it." Peter ducked away from a blast from one of the weapons. He could hear the thrusters on the Iron Man suit so he knew Mr. Stark was on his way. He also thought he heard the whine of a repulsor so he hoped the empty suit was making an appearance too. He focused on the man...correction alien, closest to him and fired a taser web at him. It seemed to knock him down but didn't knock him out. "Karen, up the charge."

"Kid, talk to me."

Peter shot another taser web at the alien, this time knocking it out. His spider sense prompted him to move just in time to avoid a shot from one of the alien weapons. It blasted a hole in the wall behind him. An Iron Man suit landed in front of him taking the brunt of another blast before firing back and knocking the alien down. "There's five of them. Two are down." He looked back at the one he had knocked down and saw him moving. "Oh come on. Karen up the charge again." He fired the taser web with one hand, knocking the guy out again, grabbed the weapon with webs from his other side and yanked it up securing it twenty feet in the air against the building.

The Iron Man suit was engaging with two of the other aliens. Peter focused on the remaining free one that was coming directly towards him. Peter darted to the side, missing the blast from the weapon. He jumped on the side of a building and fired the taser webs hitting the alien square in the chest. Unfortunately this alien didn't go down. He was still standing, and firing. Peter launched himself off the building flipping over the alien firing taser webs. Karen had upped the voltage herself because this time they took the guy down. "Stay down! Mr. Stark, how far out?" Peter landed and glanced over at the empty suit and saw it take another hit before it fired the gauntlet repulsor at it. His spider sense told him to move again as he narrowly missed the blast from the alien that had broken free of the Iron Man suit. Rolling, he landed in a crouch and got ready to fire another taser web when a second Iron Man suit landed in front of him and fired both gauntlet repulsors, driving the attacking alien to the ground. Peter launched himself up and fired web grenades at the alien he had tasered that was now getting up again. Completely wound up in webs, the alien struggled against them. Peter fired another grenade completely covering him before moving to help subdue the remaining aliens. He turned just in time to see an Iron Man suit take a blast to the chest driving it to the ground. "Tony!"

"Other suit, kid."

Peter glanced behind him and saw Iron Man, Tony, firing at one of the remaining aliens. Muttering "Ok" to himself in reassurance he looked back at the other figures. One of the previously stunned aliens got to his feet and charged Peter. The alien collided into him tackling him to the ground. Peter recovered quicker but was too close to web him. The alien seemed to have lost his weapon, if he had one to begin with, and resorted to throwing a punch. Peter caught the fist before it impacted with him and shoved the alien far enough back that he could web him to the ground. He turned and flung web grenades at all of the remaining aliens just as three black SUV's pulled into the area.

"Kid, head to the safe house. I'll meet you there."

"Mr. Stark". Peter watched people exit the SUVs, not missing the tall man with an eyepatch.

"Spider-Man, non negotiable. I don't want Fury near you."

"Yes sir." Peter gave a final look at the aliens covered with webs to make sure they weren't moving and flung his wrist to shoot a web to the nearest building, swinging himself higher and away from the area.

"Fury, do you want to tell me why there are aliens in New York?" Tony didn't bother sliding back the face mask. He didn't want Fury to see how mad he was or how worried he was. FRIDAY had already interfaced with Karen and had told him Peter wasn’t hurt. He still wanted to see for himself.

Nick Fury stepped over the unconscious alien body. He couldn't tell which one it was because it was completely covered in webs. 

"Apparently they like the night life. You want to tell me why they're covered in webs? Or should we skip to the part where you lie to me about Spider-Man's involvement in this?"

"Oh, Spider-Man was here, watching out for the neighborhood. You can thank him that you have live aliens to interrogate. The webs should wear off in a couple hours."

Nick eyed the white lumps surrounding him. Then noticed the weapons webbed to the building. "Tell Spider-Man I want to talk to him."

"No." Tony didn't trust himself to say more. This is exactly what he didn't want to happen.

"Tony, I am not on Ross's side. I just want to know what he saw so we can figure out what's going on. From what we're hearing the three that were being chased were a Skrull faction in hiding in New York. The two chasing them are Kree. None of them are supposed to be here. I'm telling you so you can play go between. I need to know what Spider-Man saw." Fury crossed his arms waiting for Stark's response.

"Sorry, can't help." Tony blasted off, grabbing the weapon Peter had webbed to the wall. He knew Fury would show up to reclaim it but it would give him a chance to analyze it first.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony landed on the roof of the building that housed the safe house. He had picked it because the surrounding buildings blocked any view of an Iron Man suit coming and going. He activated the entrance and walked into the main area. Looking around he didn't see Peter at first.

"Mr. Stark!"

Looking up, he watched Peter flip off of the ceiling and land in front of him. His mask was still on, probably so he could have Karen talk to FRIDAY and get updates.

Peter pulled off his mask and looked up at Tony. The Iron Man armor retracted, leaving Tony standing in front of him in jeans and t-shirt. "Pete, are you ok?" Tony took a step forward and reached out to push Peter's hair away from a cut on his forehead. It was already healing, which was a good sign.

"What the hell was that?"

If a person could vibrate, that's how Tony would have described Peter. Anxiety was coming off of him in waves. Tony put his hand on Peter's shoulder. The action had the intended effect of grounding Peter enough where he could focus. "Pete, look at me. You're not hurt, right?"

"I'm not hurt." Peter swallowed and looked up at Tony. "Those were not humans. But they looked like humans. And then they didn't. At least some of them didn't. And then one of the ones that still looked human looked like they were glowing. The Iron Man suit got destroyed by one of those weapons. SHIELD was there and what the hell..."

"Pete. Stop. Focus. You're ok. I'm ok. I don't know what that was about but those are the only two things that matter right now." Tony put both hands on Peter's shoulders, grounding him.

Peter nodded. He could feel both of Tony's hands gripping his shoulders. The pressure was helping. His brain was spinning in multiple directions all at once but the longer Tony kept his hands on his shoulders the more it slowed down.

"You good?"

Peter nodded. Tony squeezed his shoulders once more before letting go.  
"Happy will be here in a little while to pick us up."

Peter wrinkled his brow in confusion, "Pick us up?"

"To head back to the compound."

"I have school tomorrow."

"Yeah, you're not going to school tomorrow. I'll call in for you." Tony saw the confusion on Peter's face, "Superhero rule, you fight aliens, you take the day off. Trust me."

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony sat on the couch, flipping through reports on his tablet, not really retaining anything he was looking at. He was waiting for the inevitable notification from FRIDAY, which happened exactly 73 minutes after Peter had fallen asleep.

"Boss, Peter...". Tony cut her off, "Got it FRIDAY." He trotted down the hall to Peter's room, gently pushing open the door as he heard a stifled "NO! Tony!" and a thud.

"Lights at 10%". Tony waited for his eyes to adjust slightly and tilted his head to look at Peter who was about three feet off the floor on the wall. He crossed the room until he was standing in front of him. "Pete?" He couldn't tell if he was still asleep or if the nightmare had fully woken him. Blurry eyes focused on his and Peter let out a sigh, dropping his feet to the floor. "Mr. Stark." Tony didn't need enhanced hearing to know that the kid's heart was still pounding. Mimicking what he had done earlier, he put his hands on Peter's shoulders. "You're ok. It was just a nightmare." He felt Peter lean back against the wall.

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"Nope. Stop right there. This is the very reason I wanted you to come back to the compound." Tony watched Peter's eyes track up to meet his.

"You knew?" Peter knew his question sounded defensive but his mind was still spinning. The mental image of an Iron Man suit with a hole blown through its chest made him sick to his stomach. And now Mr. Stark was having to deal with his nightmare.

It took Tony a second to figure out where Peter's train of thought was headed. Once he realized, he knew he had to shut it down immediately. "Having a nightmare after what just happened does not make you weak."

"It sure feels like it." Peter stared at the wall, not wanting to look at Tony.

"Then every single Avenger is weak." Tony couldn't help but smile a little when Peter's eyes snapped up to his again. "Sit." He pushed Peter over to the bed then sat next to him stretching his legs out in front of him. "We all get nightmares. The things we chose to deal with are enough to push anyone over the edge." He waited to let his words sink in.

Peter played with the edge of the sheet as he digested what Tony was telling him. He tilted his head and looked over.

"Everyone deals with it differently. Cap would run. A lot. Bruce cooked. Some of it edible, but not all of it. Clint probably handled things the best. He'd go home and see his wife and kids and come back fine. He probably compartmentalized a lot but it was still a better method than the rest. Natasha would dance. There's a room off one of the gyms with nothing more than a wall of mirrors and a ballet bar. I think it was her way to show herself she was still in control."

Peter allowed himself to smile a little. Iron Man was sitting on his bed telling him that all of his childhood hero's had issues coping with 'hero stuff'. It was hard to believe but then again so was the fact that Iron Man was sitting on his bed.

Tony continued, "I by far had the worst coping skills. After New York, I didn't sleep. I'd act like it, Pepper would fall asleep, then I'd head for the lab and work all night. I built 35 different suits. It was not a healthy way to deal with it. You get to benefit from my many mistakes with coping mechanisms. And you're going to skip over all the bad ones." Tony adjusted on the bed and shoved a pillow behind him. "So, if that means I hang out in here with you until you fall asleep that's what we do. And if you have a nightmare I'll be there to make sure you're ok."


	13. Debrief

"Did you get anything other than 'I'm out sick today?'"

MJ looked around the hall to make sure no one was paying attention before answering Ned in a hushed tone. "No, just the same text you got."

"Do you think he got hurt last night?" Worry seeped through Ned as he fell into step with MJ as they threaded their way through the hall.

MJ knew he hadn't gotten hurt because true to her word, Karen sent her texts detailing minor injuries. Maybe he was more seriously injured and Karen had sent the text to keep them from worrying. She pulled out her phone. _"Ned and I are both worried that you're dead. Text me back and let me know that you're not hooked up to machines in the compound MedBay."_ She had expected a text back immediately. It didn't show up until an hour later.

_“I'm not hurt. I am at the compound though. I'll call you after school."_ She showed Ned the text in the hall between classes.

"I wonder if he's on a super secret mission?" Ned mused to MJ as they parted and headed to different classes. MJ shrugged but frowned as she walked into her class. Ned pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick text. _"Super secret mission? Do you have a mission out of the country? Is Thor there?"_

Peter put his phone face down on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Ned just asked me if I'm on a super secret mission with Thor. I need a cover story because I can't tell them about aliens in Queens. Right?" Peter was pretty sure he couldn't tell them but at this point the last 24 hours had been strange enough that he wasn't entirely sure.

"Yeah, no, you can't tell them about aliens." Tony was looking at FRIDAY's progress in searching for any information on the two names Fury had given him yesterday as well as seeing how the analysis was coming on the weapon he had recovered.

"Just tell them you're hurt and in MedBay."

Tony and Peter looked at Rhodey. Tony's quick "No" came out first quickly followed by Peter saying he had already assured them multiple times he wasn't hurt.

"You lie about being hurt all the time." Rhodey didn't see why this wasn't a good solution.

The three of them sat around a table in one of the conference rooms. Tony had debated whether this was a good idea. Ultimately it was Rhodey who reminded him that it was easier to move past something if you confronted it as soon as you could. Tony didn't want Peter waking up nightly with the image of a hole punched through the chest of an Iron Man suit. So, they had downloaded all of the footage from Karen as well as FRIDAY, who had access to both Iron Man suits' recordings.

"Are you two ready to start reviewing footage?" Rhodey looked at Peter to make sure he understood what they were doing. Peter still tended to get his feelings hurt when they reviewed training footage. He held himself to a much higher standard than anyone else ever could. From what Rhodey had seen the kid did a good job for his first alien fight.

"We'll start with watching it from start to finish and then we'll go piece by piece and make notes." Tony had put Peter in between himself and Rhodey and he made sure the kid was within arms reach. Last night had not been good. The first nightmare wasn't the only one. They weren't all of the Iron Man suit getting destroyed. They morphed into a building coming down. He figured the kid had nightmares related to the Vulture incident, but he hadn't known they got that bad. "FRIDAY, start it."

Karen's feed picked up from Peter free falling off a building. Tony's own anxiety level skyrocketed but it seemed to settle Peter's. The feed from Peter's point of view followed the five men running through alleys and proceeded through the initial fight, the arrival of the empty Iron Man suit, and the eventual arrival of Tony.

Tony knew the suit's destruction was coming up and he turned his attention to Peter. He had to give the kid credit. He kept watching through it, his face frozen. After the suits’ destruction and he knew Pete wasn't going to freak out, Tony turned his attention back to the feed. At least he did until he heard Rhodey trying to stifle a laugh.

"Is there something funny about aliens running through Queens?" Tony looked at Rhodey in dismay. It wasn't like him. Usually it was Tony cracking jokes through the debriefs.

"It's just that the kids' language gets worse and worse as it goes on."  
Tony turned his attention back to the feed in time to hear a sting of expletives. Turning, he stared at Peter in disbelief.

"What? I have two defense mechanisms. The other one is terrible puns." Peter looked between the two men. Rhodey was fighting a laugh and Mr. Stark just looked horrified. "Can we get back to the debrief?"

Tony shook his head. "Ok, from the top. At what point did you think something was not quite right?"

"The way they were running through the alleys. It definitely looks like those two are chasing the other guys. But, I thought it might be some kind of gang thing." Peter shrugged.

They worked their way through the video feeds, stopping periodically to comment on something that either Peter or the aliens had done. They rolled through the empty Iron Man suit being destroyed. Tony didn't stop the video feed. He didn't know what to tell Peter. He couldn't stop in the middle of a fight like he had but he didn't know how to tell a 15 year old who had lost too many people in his life that. He did stop it when Peter engaged with the alien after being tackled.

"Stop. Peter, what do you think you could have done differently?" Tony watched Peter's expression. He knew this was hard.

"I don't know. He was too close to use webs." Peter looked at the screen. The image of the Skrull was frozen. It looked alien...which was exactly what it was.

"I know you don't like to physically engage." Tony almost laughed at the understatement. It wasn't that Peter didn't like to engage. He flat out wouldn't engage. Tony had tried a multitude of biofeedback techniques and he still couldn't get the kid comfortable enough to actually hit something. Peter looked at it as the only way to keep him from killing somebody. Now somebodies apparently extended to aliens. Tony sighed inwardly. It was a conversation they had already had too many times. "You do know that you could have knocked him down with a single hit and he would have stayed down."

"And he could have stayed down permanently." Peter sucked in a breath. "I know you understand that I don't want to kill anyone. Hell, you even said you never wanted me to be in that position." Peter took another breath in an attempt to calm down. "Why don't you understand this." Peter looked at Tony, his eyes pleading for him to understand.

"What I don't understand is why you don't have an ounce of self preservation."

Rhodey looked between Tony and Peter. It's the same discussion they had been having for weeks and not getting anywhere with it. "How about we focus on the two aliens and not this. FRIDAY, have you found any mention of Skrull or Kree?"

Peter pushed his chair back and stood up. "I need to take a break." He walked out of the room without waiting for anyone to respond and headed upstairs.

Tony watched Peter walk out of the conference room. "Damn it".


	14. Not Alone

Peter slammed his bedroom door behind him and flopped onto his bed. He didn't even know what he was mad about. He was tired of having the same argument with Mr. Stark but this time was worse. He had never walked out of a room to end the argument. Thinking about it now, he had never walked out of a room on anybody in any situation.

He picked up a stress ball from the nightstand and started throwing it against the wall. He wasn't sure why it was there. He thought it might have been Ned's and it just ended up in his backpack and in turn on his nightstand. Throw, catch, throw, catch. The rhythmic thud was almost soothing. He knew he was tired. He had not expected that fighting aliens would send him reeling back into the endless loop of nightmares. The ones related to the Vulture had pretty much subsided. He'd have one every once in a while but it wasn't something he couldn't handle. Last night was bad. He hadn't handled it. He hadn't expected it. But Mr. Stark had. Peter felt like he should have handled it better. They were just aliens. It's not like everyone didn't know they existed. But he had flipped out. Flipped out over aliens. Flipped out over seeing an empty Iron Man suit get destroyed. The thud started getting louder. He didn't think it was hard enough to dent the wall but he backed off anyway. The thud got quieter as the rhythmic throw, catch continued. His door opened and he almost missed the ball that was flying back at his face. Almost.

Tony walked into Peter's bedroom and sat down in the desk chair. "Talk to me kid."

Peter swallowed and threw the ball against the wall a final time before dropping it on his stomach. "I can't be the hero you want me to be."

"Good. I don't want you to." Tony watched confusion streak across Peter's face. "If you're doing this because of someone else - me because you're trying to impress me or live up to the ideal of a childhood hero, or out of penance and the memory of your uncle - then you're doing it for the wrong reason and it's going to get you killed." Tony wheeled the chair closer to the bed so he knew he was in Peter's line of vision. "But, I don't think that's why you do it."

Peter blinked back a few stray tears, "Yeah? Why do you think I do it."

"Because a hero is who you are. Think back to the Stark Expo. When you dropped that little bombshell on me I realized that with or without the spider you are someone who will go to any length to protect people - even people you don't know. The spider just gives you the ability to do it a little more effectively."

Peter pushed himself into a sitting position on the bed. "I was just a stupid little kid at the Stark Expo."

"Peter."

Peter looked up at Mr. Stark's face. He couldn't remember Mr. Stark ever calling him 'Peter'. He had called him a multitude of nicknames - some better than others - but when he called him by his name it was always 'Pete'. Hearing him say 'Peter' was like when May would use his full name when he was in trouble. And it made him realize that he liked that Mr. Stark called him 'Pete'. He was the only one and it made it special. And now he was using 'Peter'. Crap.

Tony watched an array of emotion cross Peter's face. He realized that he used 'Peter' instead of 'Pete'. He wasn't sure what that meant but it almost felt like what he imagined to be a dad moment. Huh. Dismissing the thought he went back to the problem at hand. "There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don't even know where to begin. Stupid is not a word I would ever use to describe anything about you. And, I didn't see any other kid, or adult, standing in front of a drone. Everybody else was running. I've also seen you face down a variety of criminal elements including ones that have threatened to kill you. Your response is invalid. So try again."

Peter didn't know what he was supposed to say, so he changed subjects. "I want to stop fighting with you over my fighting skills. It's not that I don't have any self preservation instincts. In fact I have more because of the bite."

Tony sat back and studied Peter. Tony was a master at deflection so he recognized it from a mile away. But, he'd let the kid get away with it for now. He was curious where he was going with this. "I think we should stop fighting over it too. But I think we're arguing over different things. You don't know how to handle your strength and I haven't been able to help you so your answer is to do nothing. I don't like that as a solution because I do not want you to get hurt."

"So where does that leave us?" Peter pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

"That leaves us still looking for a solution." Tony crossed his arms and looked at Peter.

"That leaves us at an impasse. Neither one liking what the other one is doing." Peter challenged, looking over at Mr. Stark.

"I'll make a deal with you. I won't say another word about your fighting unless you get hurt. In exchange, you don't pitch a fit about me checking up on you."

Peter considered Mr. Stark's offer. It wasn't terrible. He nodded. "Ok." He took a deep breath. "Did FRIDAY find anything about the aliens?"

"Not yet. I think Fury might be here to retrieve the weapon so you and I are going to stay scarce." Tony stood up from the chair and headed for Peter's bedroom door.

Hopping up from his bed, Peter followed Mr. Stark out of his bedroom. "Great, does that mean we don't have to finish the debrief?"

Tony laughed, "You get a reprieve for now."

"Can we go work on the nanotech?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Nope. That's where the weapon is. You get to help me with some SI paperwork. It's like homework for adults. You'll be a natural." Tony grinned at the groan the comment elicited from Peter.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter had a chair pulled up to the other side of Tony's desk in his office. Tony had gone through all of the proposals and had pulled out the ones he knew Peter wouldn't have any problem vetting. Most of it was from R & D asking to take research to the next level which was usually either prototype construction or testing. It was interesting watching Peter read through each proposal. He asked good questions and made intuitive comments. He also found two mistakes in the math on two separate proposals. Tony couldn't wait to tell the people responsible for them that his 15 year old intern had found the errors - and corrected them.

Peter finished his stack and started reading through some of the ones Tony had finished. The processes were way more involved than what he was familiar with but he knew enough that he could follow the general idea for each one. "This is fun. I can't believer you don't like doing this." The stack on his desk was fairly large and Mr. Stark had let it slip that Pepper had gotten onto him because he had put off reviewing them for so long. It was one of the few things she forced him to do.

"It just gets monotonous. Trust me. If you do it long enough you won't like it any more either." Tony studied Peter. He was in a better mood than he was earlier but that just meant he had buried all of the problems. The voice in his head reminded him that he himself did that on a regular basis and it wasn't healthy. He started inventorying the problems in his head - his way of prioritizing so he could help fix it. Because that's what he did...fixed things. They had tabled the fighting issue. He had some ideas but it would take time. Until then he'd gotten the kid to agree to him monitoring a little closer. Problem two, the kid didn't see himself as a hero. That one bothered him the most because he didn't understand how he didn't think he was a hero. That was a longer play and was going to require some thought. The third problem - nightmares. They all had them, it came with the territory. He hated that Peter had them. No 15 year old should have to deal with waking up screaming. Peter had told him last night that the Vulture ones had pretty much stopped until they came back with a vengeance last night. He wasn't overly worried about the Vulture ones. He knew from experience that the initial nightmare from last night had triggered the rest of it. So that meant if he could work through the initial one with Peter, the other ones might subside too. "Hey, Pete...do you want to stay here tonight or head back after dinner?" The question was innocent but it the answer would tell Tony where Peter's head was.

"Umm...Can I stay here?"

So he was still worried about the nightmares. "Sure thing kiddo. I'll come up with a cover story for May."

Relief spread across Peter's face. "Thanks." He paused, unaware that Tony was scrutinizing his face as the thoughts played through his brain. "It's just that May doesn't deal very well with the Spider-Man stuff. I mean she's ok with me doing it, kind of, I think she just came to the same conclusion you did that I'm going to do it anyway and if she was on board with it, at least I wouldn't be sneaking out. But she never wants to hear details. She just wants to know that I'm not hurt. If...if I have another nightmare she won't be able to handle it."

That was way more than Tony expected and he wanted to keep the kid talking. "I get it. Pepper doesn't want details either. She just wants to know that I'm not dead."

Peter smiled. It was nice to know Mr. Stark had the same problem.

”I'm curious, when you had nightmares right after the thing with the Vulture..."

"How did May handle it? She freaked out with the first one so I ended up not sleeping for a week. Eventually I was so tired I crashed. I guess my brain was tired enough it didn't have the energy to produce a nightmare. After that, when I'd have them I could manage to not wake her up and just deal with it."

It took everything Tony had not to, as Peter would call it, overreact. Peter had just dealt with it. By himself. "Ok, well, here's the thing. You're not alone. So, if you have a nightmare when you're not here, call me." He could tell Peter was about to protest. "I'm serious. Middle of the night, I want a call. I've dealt with nightmares on my own because I didn't want to burden anyone else and it sucks. It makes you feel isolated and alone. You are not alone."

Peter wrestled with what Mr. Stark was telling him. He couldn't call the man at 2am. Could he? It was nice to have someone else there last night. He realized that Mr. Stark was right when he said dealing with them alone made you feel isolated. That's definitely how he felt after the Vulture. But what if...Peter could feel his anxiety start to rise.

"Kid, you just went from calm to impending panic attack in about 10 seconds, talk to me."

"What if...what if you're not there?" Peter tried forcing himself to calm down. He thought he might be succeeding on the outside but his insides were screaming 'he'll die just like everybody else'.

It took Tony way longer than it should of to figure out what was going on inside Peter's head. Then it started clicking, Peter's father had died, Peter's uncle had died, Peter's nightmares from last night stemmed not from aliens, they were focused on the Iron Man suit getting destroyed. For someone so smart, he was quite possibly the densest person on the planet. He knew last night that Peter's issue was the Iron Man suit getting destroyed. Last night he was focused solely on getting Peter through the night. In the light of day his focus had been on the fact that the kid froze during a fight and wouldn't hit an alien. None of that was the actual problem. Peter's problem was the fact that virtually every male figure in his life had died. No, he corrected himself. Not just died, had been killed. And the man that was currently acting as male role model for Peter was an Avenger with a history of risking his life. Tony took a deep breath and pondered the words that were about to pour out of his mouth, "Pete, you and I both know that what we choose to do is dangerous so I'm not going to pretend like getting killed isn't a very real possibility. But, if you solely focus on the what if, it'll paralyze you and eventually destroy you. You aren't alone. I am literally a phone call away, 6 minutes by suit if I'm at the compound. Rhodey is a phone call away. I haven't upgraded his thrusters so it'll take him a little longer. Pepper is a phone call away. She refuses to use the suit I made for her so she's limited to as fast as Happy can drive, which incidentally is pretty darn fast when he's motivated. Happy, even though he doesn't act like it, is a phone call away. MJ and Ned are a phone call away. In fact, I've changed my mind about letting you tell them about the aliens. They've both proved that they can keep a secret. The bottom line is you are not alone. You and I can work through the rest of it because believe it or not you and I are a lot alike. I know what it's like to have people you care about die."

For the second time in a day Peter blinked back the few stray tears that were threatening to fall. Having all of this in the open hurt. He felt exposed. But he also felt safe. He knew without a doubt that Mr. Stark had his best interest at heart. He still wasn't sure he could call him at 2am. But, it was nice to have the option if things got bad. "You know Ned is going to flip out over the fact that I saw an alien. He may ask to see footage."

Tony smiled, yep, the kid was exactly like him. Deflecting when things got tough. "Show him. Just tell him Iron Man will come find him if he tells anyone."


	15. Aliens and Accords

"Dude...aliens. Not just aliens but shape shifting aliens." Ned was sitting on the floor in Peter's living room. May was still at work. MJ tucked her legs under her where she sat on the couch next to Peter. They were supposed to be working on homework but Peter had taken the opportunity to fill them in on the events of the last couple days, starting with why he had missed school on Friday. Homework had taken a back seat at that point.

"Yeah, I know. They're green. At least some of them are. Mr. Stark hasn't found out why they're here. SHIELD doesn't know why they're here. Although I don't think Fury was surprised." Peter leaned back on the couch.

"You met Nick Fury?" Ned was almost squealing with delight.

"Uh...no. Mr. Stark made me leave. Something about not wanting Fury near me. He hasn't said it directly but I think it has something to do with the accords." Peter subconsciously leaned into MJ. She had her arm on the back of the couch and was playing with his hair. It felt nice. He wasn't sure if she was aware she was doing it. Then again, it was MJ and she almost always knew what she was doing.

"Probably the push to remove the underage limit in the latest round of amendments."

Peter looked at MJ and marveled at how and why she would know what was in the amendments. He didn't even know what was in the amendments and he spent a large amount of time with the man that was instrumental in getting the changes made. Granted he had never asked Mr. Stark but that was primarily because the one and only time he had mentioned it, Mr. Stark immediately got in a really bad mood.

"Oh, good point. That would mean Peter would have to register and the whole secret identity thing would be out the window." Ned leaned back against the chair and looked thoughtful.

"Wait, what?" Peter realized maybe he should have been talking to Mr. Stark about the accords and apparently he should have been paying attention in civics too.

"Yeah, Secretary Ross is pushing registration of any one remotely enhanced. So that would include enhanced individuals like you as well as mutants and anyone who uses specialized tech like Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes." Ned took a bite of his pizza. "Do you really not know about this? There was a huge blow up between Mr. Stark and Secretary Ross last week in D.C. It was all over the news. Before that they had been able to keep the amendment negotiations under wraps"

Ok, add watching the news to the list of things he should be doing. Peter dropped the piece of pizza he had been holding back onto the plate in his lap. How could he be this out of the loop on things that could completely wreck his life.

MJ tapped him on the neck to get his attention. "I'm pretty sure it's handled. King T'Challa from Wakanda stepped in and said he would not support registration of any kind. Wakanda is kind of a big deal right now so no one is going to go against him." She started playing with his hair again. "Ned and I would have been all over you if this was something that you needed to worry about. The whole thing blew over in about 24 hours. But Mr. Stark is probably just being extra cautious since it could have been a risk. So, back to aliens. What's the prevailing theory?"

Peter looked between MJ and Ned. "I don't think I tell you two enough how awesome you are. There is literally no one else that would sit here and have a conversation about aliens and not completely freak out. Or pay attention to international negotiations."

"Well, I don't know about MJ but I've been working under the assumption that as the Guy in the Chair, all of that was in the job description. It's totally worth it just to be able to live vicariously through you." Ned picked up another piece of pizza, obviously pleased with himself.

"So aliens...is this a take over the world and kill everyone thing?" MJ took a sip of her coke and waited for Peter to spill what he knew about the aliens.

Peter shook his head. "I don't think so. There were only five of them and they seemed way more interested in killing each other than destroying anything." He thought about what he knew about them. "Plus, my spidey sense didn't go off until after I tried to web them up."

"So why are they here?" Ned seemed relieved that impending doom wasn't on the horizon and was now more interested in the idea of aliens.

"That has been the topic of discussion since Thursday night. Rhodey did find out from Fury that he was more concerned about the Kree - the ones that didn't shape shift - than he was the other ones." Peter thought about the two Kree. They were stronger and had better weapons so he thought it probably made sense that they were the bigger threat. Either way he didn't like aliens running around Queens.

The front door opened and May walked in. "Hi honey! How's the homework coming?"

The trio shifted their eyes to the books scattered on the floor and table. "Great, were almost done." Peter glanced over at the other two. He had told them under no circumstance was May to find out about the aliens. While the three of them had lived through the attack on New York, they were too young when it happened to have the same fear. May on the other hand remembered it clearly and was terrified of the idea of aliens.

May walked over to the sofa and gave Peter a kiss on the head and greeted the other two before looking back down at Peter. "Are you doing your Spider-Man thing tonight?"

"Yeah, I thought I'd walk everyone home and then swing back."

"Ok, home by Midnight." She grabbed a piece of pizza and headed towards her room. "Yell if you need me!"

XXXXXXXXXX

From Peter's apartment, Ned's apartment was closest so it only made sense to stop at Ned's first. Plus it gave Peter time to walk with just MJ. It wasn't that Ned didn't know something was going on. They just didn't really talk about it. Which was nice. Peter was pretty sure it was a conscious effort by all three of them to avoid any kind of awkwardness. It wasn't like MJ and Peter were into public displays of affection anyway. They pretty much limited it to the occasional hand holding or sitting together when other people were around. That didn't mean that they didn't enjoy an occasional make out session when they were by themselves but at the end of the day they just really liked hanging out with each other. And, by not moving too quickly, Peter was able to avoid all of the anxiety surrounding Mr. Stark's completely unnecessary comment about "Spider Babies".

They had figured out early on in the relationship that the roof of MJ's apartment complex was a great place for Spider-Man to swing off of. It was high enough and there was a spot that was hidden from view so no one would see Spider-Man leaving the building repeatedly, or changing for that matter.

After they dropped Ned off, they continued towards MJ's apartment, fingers interlaced.

"So, do you want to tell me the real reason you spent two nights at the compound?"

Peter had expected the question. MJ was more than observant. She was like a bloodhound. She always knew when he was only giving them part of the story. "I haven't been sleeping great. The first night was really bad."

"But it wasn't the aliens?" She was pretty sure the aliens hadn't freaked him out.

"No." Peter wasn't even sure how to explain what the issue was. "The empty Iron Man suit got destroyed."

"And your brain saw it as Mr. Stark. Makes sense that would freak you out." MJ tightened her fingers around his.

"Glad it makes sense to you because it doesn't make sense to me."

MJ stopped and pulled Peter so he was looking at her. "That's because you're an idiot and you're refusing to let any of this to the surface. You've lost every adult male figure in your life. Seeing the Iron Man suit destroyed wouldn't have been easy."

Peter bit his bottom lip and ducked his head. It was times like this that he actually liked the fact the MJ was taller than him.

MJ sighed and pulled Peter as she started walking again. "The one thing I definitely know is that you are not going to turn into a zombie like you did after Homecoming."

"Mr. Stark said to call him, even if it's 2am." Peter let himself be pulled down the sidewalk by MJ.

"And you should. The man is a walking billboard for PTSD. If anyone can help you deal with nightmares it's him. And, you do realize that if you don't, he'll probably just wire your bedroom so he'll get an alert." MJ smiled to herself as she felt Peter almost stop walking at that comment. If Stark hadn't already thought of that she'd make sure he did. She felt pretty sure Karen would relay a message for her.

"Crap. I can't call him at 2am. The man needs sleep. But you're right. He'd totally wire my bedroom." Peter picked up his pace when he felt MJ pull on his arm.

"I have an idea to try." They had reached MJ's apartment complex. She put in the door code and Peter followed her through the lobby and into the elevator.

"You're going to have to figure out how to swing back with it. Are you actually patrolling or are you just going home?" MJ slid her key into the door.

"Swing back with what?" Peter automatically lowered his voice, knowing that MJ's parents were home as they walked into the apartment.

"Hang on, let me grab it." MJ left Peter standing in the living room. She reappeared a few seconds later with teddy bear. A well worn, obviously much loved bear. "Come on, I'll walk you out."

Bear tucked under one arm, MJ grabbed Peter's hand and pulled him out the door and toward the stairwell. "I've had Mr. Bear since I was little. He's helped me though more than a couple bad nights."

Peter followed MJ up the stairs. "MJ, I'm not taking your bear."

"Yes, you are." MJ pushes open the door to the roof and turned around and shoved Mr. Bear in Peter's face.

"He smells like your shampoo." Peter took a deep breath. He liked the way MJ smelled. Every time it brought a smile to his face.

"Exactly. I was reading this article about how our sense of smell interacts with our brain. Our brains associate certain smells with different feelings which in turn trigger different responses in our brains. With your sense of smell post spider my guess is yours works even better than most peoples. Of course this entire hypothesis is predicated on the idea that I don't give you nightmares." The last part was said with a definite smirk.

Peter thought MJ looked really proud of herself but she wasn't wrong. He could smell her shampoo from a pretty good distance away and it always brought a feeling of calmness. It was the same way he always felt safe in the lab. It had a certain smell. He had figured out that it wasn't necessarily the lab but Mr. Stark, after the lab had to be scrubbed down after one of their projects literally melted down. He looked back down at the bear and contemplated how he was getting back with him. "I'll agree to take him on a trial basis. He has to ride in the backpack though."

MJ laughed. Grabbing his backpack she pulled his Spider-Man suit out and stuffed the bear in. Handing his suit to him, she turned around while he changed. "He's good company and he should be fine in the backpack. Just don't get him shot or stabbed." She heard Peter tap the spider emblem and turned around in time to see the suit shrink around him. MJ leaned over and kissed him. "Text me when you get home."

Peter leaned over and kissed MJ again. "You don't want to stay up here a little while do you?" Peter smiled at the blush that spread across MJ's cheeks. He kissed her again and laughed when she playfully pushed him away.

"If you take the long way home, you'll have just enough time to make it home before curfew. Remember to text me when you get home. I'll talk to you tomorrow." MJ took a step back to give him room.

Peter pulled his mask over his head. Looking back at MJ one more time he tightened his backpack. Turning back to focus he jogged toward the edge of the roof and kept off, flinging a web towards the closest building.

After swinging home the long way, plus scaring off some would be muggers, Peter still made it home well before his midnight curfew. He was tired. He might not need as much sleep as a normal person but he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the last two nights. At this point he was just apprehensive about sleeping. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up Aunt May. And he didn't want to call Mr. Stark. He retrieved Mr Bear from his backpack. It definitely smelled like MJ. "Mr. Bear, you're supposed to keep me from having nightmares. Got it?" Mr. Bear did not respond so Peter took it to mean that he was up to the challenge. Peter also figured there was a 75% chance that either he'd wake May up or he'd end up caving and calling Mr. Stark. Stupid nightmares. He stretched out and stared at the ceiling, Mr. Bear resting on his chest. Yeah, this night was going to suck.

XXXXXXXXXX

Aliens...web them up...repulsor whirl...safe...weapons fire...destruction...wrong suit kid...rubble...smoke...not alone...roses...calm...roses? Roses. Peter jerked awake. He looked over at Mr. Bear who was jammed against the crook of his neck. "Good job, Mr. Bear", Peter mumbled and rolled over, unceremoniously on top of the stuffed animal.

When Peter woke up to the sun streaming through his window he rolled off of the lump that was Mr. Bear. He mumbled an apology to the bear and swung his feet off the bed. He had lost track of the number of times he had jerked awake last night. But on the plus side, he hadn't woken up screaming. And, he had gotten a couple hours of actual sleep. MJ was never going to let him forget that she was right.

XXXXXXXXXX

"You sure you're ok kid?" Tony studied Peter. It was their normal Wednesday lab day. He had expected at least one middle of the night call but the kid had been radio silent, at least at night.

Peter shrugged. "I've had a couple nightmares but nothing that's been unmanageable." He wasn't sure he wanted to tell Iron Man exactly how he had managed to avoid waking up screaming.

Tony narrowed his eyes and stared at Peter. The kid was terrible at lying. He just didn't have it in him. Tony truly had no idea how he managed to keep Spider-Man under wraps. But, Karen hadn't reported a drop in his response time, which is what usually happened when he wasn't sleeping.

Peter knew Mr. Stark was staring at him. It always made him antsy. Not nervous but rather fidgety and just like he couldn't lie to the man. Before he knew what he was doing, words started spilling out of his mouth. "MJ read this article about how smells translate in your brain and produce various emotional responses. She always makes me calm just like the smell of the you and lab make me feel safe. She gave me an old bear of hers that smells like her, or at least the smell I associate her that I think is probably just the shampoo that she uses but still, it makes me calm. I didn't think it would work but it did...I mean it doesn't stop the nightmares but it pulls me out of them enough so I don't wake up screaming with my heart pounding. So I guess now I'm just stuck sleeping with a teddy bear." Peter sucked in a breath and looked at Mr. Stark to gauge his reaction.

One of the things Tony absolutely loved about Peter was how sometimes words just poured out of his mouth. It was in those times that he was assured that Peter trusted him, because while Peter talked a lot to just about anyone, this was different. It was everything he kept pushed down and didn't allow most people to see. He counted himself lucky that he was included in what he thought was an incredibly small number of people. He couldn't stop the grin that appeared on his face.

"Please don't make fun of me." Peter pleaded when he saw the grin on Mr. Stark's face.

"I'm not smiling about the teddy bear. At least not how you think. It's a great solution. It's a smart solution. Although don't tell MJ I said that. I'll never live it down." Tony cocked his head and looked at Peter. "Seriously, you're ok?"

Peter shrugged again. "Yeah. I mean they're still there but they're getting better. I'm not having nearly as many."

Tony nodded. "Ok. You'll tell me if they start getting bad again." Tony watched Peter hesitate but eventually he nodded in agreement.

"Good. Because Pepper is making me go to Hong Kong next week for the annual board meeting. I didn't want to leave if you were still having issues." Tony watched a shocked look roll across Peter's face.

"You can't blow off a board meeting just because your intern had a couple bad dreams."

"Oh, I can. And if I think I need to, I will. But, on the plus side there's a 12 hour time distance so if you need someone to talk to at 2am it'll only be 2pm there and you'll probably be doing me a favor."


	16. Hong Kong

Tony stared out the window at the Hong Kong skyline. It wasn't quite as comforting as the New York skyline had been when he owned Avengers Tower but it was close. It was familiar. When SI's international presence became larger and Pepper started spending more time abroad he had insisted on buying something. He could control security that way.

The annual board meeting gave him an excuse to be in Hong Kong, the corresponding event going on downstairs gave him the cover he needed. He was always fashionably late and the coming and going of so many people made this easier.

He looked down at his phone, checking the time but also looking at the text exchange from earlier.

_"Hey Mr. Stark! How's Hong Kong?"_

_"It's a board meeting. I'm currently looking at a presentation that looks like it was put together by a kindergartner. It's 1pm here which means it's 1am there. Are you patrolling? I thought your curfew was midnight? Am I going to have to bail you out of hot water with May when I get home?"_

_"Umm...yes to patrolling. No to May, she's working. I'm headed home. It's been quiet."_

_"You haven't been out late like this in a while. Everything ok?"_

_"Sure. I mean, I was just restless tonight and literally climbing the walls in the apartment. Thought I could at least maybe help someone."_

_"But you're ok, right?"_

_"I'm fine. Your fine. Not my fine."_

_"Ok kid. Get home and get some sleep. Don't you have a biomechanics lab tomorrow?"_

_"Yes. We're going to a driving range. Physics in motion. Should be interesting. I don't think many of us are going to be any good at golf."_

_"Have fun. I actually like golf. It's one of those business things. Maybe if you don't hate it I'll take you to play sometime."_

_"We'll see. I've never played. I may be horrible."_

He heard the elevator doors slide open behind him. Straightening an imaginary crease on the sleeve of his tuxedo as a way to steel himself, he turned around. Steve Rogers stepped off the elevator. Almost unrecognizable he had a baseball cap pulled low, stubble covering the bottom half of his face, jeans, a t-shirt, and a nondescript jacket. It would have been an amusing sight a year ago but now it just showed how polar opposite they were. Himself dressed to the nines and Steve looking like just some guy you might pass on the street, never thinking twice about him.

Neither one of them said anything. Tony fought back the urge to summon a suit and fire a repulsor into Steve's chest. He thought he had worked through all of this but it was clearly apparent in the moment that he hadn't. Tamping it back down, he put his facade back up. There was a reason he had reached out. He looked at his phone one last time before sliding it into his pocket. "Steve. Any trouble getting up to the penthouse?"

Steve shook his head. "FRIDAY cleared the way." He took a hesitant step forward but decided to stop at one, unsure of where they stood.

"Good". Tony crossed over to the bar and poured a drink. Picking it up but not bringing it to his lips he looked at Steve. "I'm amending the accords."

"I'm pretty sure you didn't reach out just to tell me that."

Tony nodded. "If we can get the accords amended and the charges removed I needed to see where that leaves us. You said call if I needed you." Tony paused and finally took a sip of the drink in his hand. "I'm just worried if I wait until then it'll be too late."

Steve tentatively took another step forward. "We heard about the run in you had in New York. I think the names I heard were Skrulls and Kree?"

Tony nodded. He wasn't surprised Steve knew. Natasha would still be plugged in to the going ons with S.H.I.E.L.D. "They were interesting." Tony bit back the rest of the comment that was about to come spilling out that Steve would like the Skrulls since he could appreciate that they were two faced. Pepper would be proud of his restraint.

"You think there's something bigger planned?" Steve was genuinely concerned. It was bad enough facing off against home grown threats. The ones from outer space were on an entirely different level. Tony may not think it true but they all still had nightmares about New York.

"Not necessarily. But it was just an in your face reminder that we aren't alone and we are spectacularly out gunned." Tony set his unfinished drink down.

"Did anyone get hurt?" The intel Natasha had gotten was good but limited.

"No. We handled it."

"We?" Steve asked. He wasn't sure who was involved. He knew Fury had shown up at some point.

"It's handled."

Steve knew that was all the information he was going to get from Tony about the incident. It was clear Tony didn't trust him. If they were going to move past this he was going to have to rebuild some of that trust. Which meant not pushing and apparently not talking about the alien incident. "Tony, I know we have some issues to work through but I think you're right. If we can't work to get a team back together - when the next thing comes we won't be able to handle it. So, I'm open to suggestions."

Tony studied Steve. Part of him saw his friend. The other part of him saw the shield his father had made being driven into his chest. He missed the team. Hell, he missed Steve. And Peter needed more than Iron Man and War Machine backing him up. If it had just been him, he would have wallowed in his own misery and never talked to Steve Rogers again. But it wasn't just him. It was a 15 year old kid that couldn't hit even an alien with his fist because he was afraid of what he might do. Tony couldn't teach him control because he didn't know what it felt like. "We make it work. Step one is getting the Accords fixed. You were right not to sign them. Some of the provisions are a problem."

Steve nodded. "Do you have a timeline?"

"Ross is being, well, Ross. But there's enough people who are listening and see that they have to be changed. T'Challa's backing has been instrumental but there's a long way to go." Tony changed subjects. "Everyone safe?"

"Yes. Sam is in Wakanda. Wanda moves around but Vision sticks pretty close, but you probably knew that." Tony nodded before Steve continued, "You know Clint and Scott are still under house arrest." Steve paused, "Nat headed to New York after she heard about the incident. If you need help, you know she won't hesitate."

Romanoff being in New York took Tony by surprise. He didn't think she'd risk stepping foot back in the US until the charges were dropped. Ross had insisted and gone over everyone's heads when he charged her. He wasn't sure what to do with that information yet. There was one other he wanted to know about. "And the last one?"

Steve sucked in a breath. "He's In Wakanda. They managed to deprogram him and he's working through the rest of it."

Tony nodded. He didn't know what do to what that information either. "I'll send you revisions as we do them. It needs to be something everyone can live with."

Steve nodded. "Tony...for what it's worth I'm sorry things happened the way they did." He stopped himself from repeating the same message he had sent him when he sent him the phone.

"It's worth a great deal. I'll need a couple hundred hours of therapy to get there but I do know that we need to make this work."


	17. Golf

Peter pulled his earbuds out of his ears as he exited the elevator outside of the labs. Mr. Stark had gotten back from Hong Kong yesterday and had asked him if he wanted to spend Saturday in the lab as a makeup for missing Wednesday. Wednesday just felt weird. He always spent Wednesdays with Mr. Stark. Maybe that's why he had gone patrolling until late and ended up texting the man at 1 am. He thought he might hear more about staying out late but that didn't take away from the from the good mood he was in. He had a really good week in spite of missing Wednesday lab time. The doors slid open and Mr. Stark waved him over, coffee mug in hand.

"I had a thought about the nanotech when I was in Hong Kong." Pulling up the holographic display he flicked a button and the Iron Man armor sprouted out from the pseudo arc reactor. Once fully formed, Tony tapped the suit. Where before the nanobots has broken apart and then reformed, this time they stayed together.

"You got it to maintain integrity! That's awesome." Peter beamed at the display. He tapped the suit himself. "What's the max impact?"

Tony adjusted the setting and tapped it again. The integrity breached but the time it took to reform was significantly better than it was before. "High enough that I feel good about testing your web-shooters." He pushed the hologram to the side and started the manufacturing of the nanobots before turning to Peter and taking a sip of coffee. "How was golf?"

Peter's face lit up. "You're not going to believe it...". He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and pulled up the video MJ had taken. Flipping it around he pushed play and showed it to Mr. Stark.

Tony took the phone and watched the video of Pete hitting shot after shot and drives that landed exactly where they were supposed to. He looked up at Peter who had a wide grin on his face. "You're really good." He continued watching the video and watched Peter's form. He understood why the kid was so good. Peter understood the physics behind a golf swing, and because of the spider bite, he had the agility to make his body perform the motion seamlessly. His eyesight certainly helped as well. "Really good. How did you like it?"

"It was awesome! The golf course was quiet, well except for when Flash and his friends started cutting up instead of actually trying. And it was something I wasn't bad at."

Tony eyed Peter. The kid couldn't bring himself to say he was good at something. Tony still found that astonishing. "FRIDAY, get a tee time today or tomorrow morning for either Shinnecock or Baltusrol." This was the perfect, non-life threatening way to work on the kids' confidence. He had two long flights to think about the issue with Peter not seeing himself as a hero and he thought that some of it might stem from a lack of confidence in who he was. Not as Spider-Man but as Peter who happened to now be enhanced. He didn't want to turn him into a cloned ego maniac like himself but the kid could stand to build his confidence up a little. Tony watched Pete's eyes light up as he simultaneously tried to tell to tell him that he didn't have to take him golfing. Tony waived him off. "You'd be doing me a favor, kid. I like golf and I very rarely get to go with someone I like. Usually it's trying to broker a business deal. It'll be enjoyable just to play without having to strategize business at the same time."

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony strapped on Peter's watch. The band automatically adjusted to his larger wrist.

"I still don't understand why I can't test my own web shooter." Peter stood in front of Tony with his arms crossed.

"Because I'm not letting you do what equates to human testing. That's how we got a Hulk." Tony tapped the holographic screen and looked at the diagnostic report. Checking the numbers a final time he looked at Peter. "Behind the blast wall."

Peter let out a little growl and moved behind the glass partition. Neither one of them thought that there was any kind of outward danger and Peter thought this particular safety measure was ridiculous. He watched Mr. Stark on the other side of the glass.

Tony flexed his wrist and tapped the side of the watch. They had to make the nanobot trigger so that Peter couldn't accidentally trigger them. The mental component was a little tricky but they had finally worked it out. He watched the web shooter form on the underneath part of his wrist.

Peter poked his head out from behind the glass. "You didn't blow up and you didn't turn into a zombie. Can I come out and test it myself?"

Tony grinned and shot a web at Peter, narrowly missing him when he ducked. He walked over to the diagnostic read outs and studied the results. Satisfied that there was no effect on him, he unstrapped the watch and handed it to Peter. The web shooter was forming almost before Peter had finished fastening the band.

"This is so cool." He flexed his wrist and studied the web shooter. He could control its configuration which was really amazing. It wasn't the souped-up version of his web-shooters that he had in his suit but since this was merely for emergencies when he wasn't in his suit it was perfect. He looked over and saw Mr. Stark working on the metal band for his other wrist. By the end of the day he would have two fully functional nanobot web-shooters. Which meant the Iron Man armor was next. This was seriously turning out to be a great week.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter rolled out of bed rubbing his eyes. Mr. Stark had given him instructions last night on what he had to wear and what time they had to leave...to play golf. Part of him was actually pretty excited about playing golf with Mr. Stark. They had only gone to the driving range and the putting greens during the biomechanics lab so he was looking forward to playing actual golf. The other part of him was groaning at the fact that it was 6 am Sunday morning and he was about to put on clothes that were nicer than most of what he owned. He still found it weird that he had gradually obtained an entirely different wardrobe in his closet at the compound. It started as extra shirts and jeans in case they got messy in the lab, extra pajamas in case he ended up spending the night on a non-spend the night night. One day as he was changing his shirt after a particularly messy couple hours in the lab he realized that he had just as many clothes at the compound as he did at the apartment. He had given up on trying to get Mr. Stark not to do it. He wasn't even sure if it was him or Ms. Potts that bought him clothes. He thought it might be the latter. He really couldn't imagine Mr. Stark buying him clothes.

Once dressed he walked out to the kitchen. Mr. Stark was filling up a travel mug of coffee. He tossed Peter a bottle of orange juice which Peter promptly finished. Grabbing a donut out of a box sitting on the bar, Peter ate his sugary breakfast in complete silence. He knew Mr. Stark needed at least a couple sips of coffee before he actually engaged in conversation. Peter heard a satisfied sigh as he was putting the last bite in his mouth.

"Ready kid?" Tony grabbed his coffee, glasses and keys.

"Yes, sir. Happy's not driving?" Peter asked, following Mr. Stark to the elevator.

"Happy hates golf. Hates the club house. Hates everything remotely related to golf. Plus, I thought we'd take the convertible. Which Happy also hates." Peter followed Tony off the elevator into the parking garage. Popping the trunk, Tony checked to make sure that Happy did in fact put the golf clubs in last night.

Peter looked over Mr. Stark's shoulder seeing two sets of golf clubs. One set in a not so subtle navy and red bag. "When did you get me golf clubs?"

Shutting the trunk Tony opened the driver side door and slid behind the wheel. "Last night."

Peter chuckled as he got into the passenger seat. Of course he did.

Peter's jaw dropped as they pulled into the golf course. It was nothing like the course they went to for class. It was much, much, nicer. Peter trailed Mr. Stark with his golf clubs slung over his shoulder. In short order he was sitting next to Mr. Stark on their way to the first tee. "Can I drive the golf cart?"

"I've seen you drive kid. There's no way I'm letting you drive here."

"It wasn't that bad." Peter really didn't remember much of totaling Flash's dad's car. He had other things to worry about at the time. He vaguely thought he remembered that the car might of ended up on its side and cringed little bit.

"Not that bad? You weren't even going that fast. And I'm not sure using webs to make a turn was really the best idea." Tony watched Peter cringe even more at the description. "This summer you can get out on the completely open and unoccupied roads around the compound. No web shooters. Just learn how to drive when you're not chasing a bad guy."

"That seems a little less stressful. I had to have Ned look up how to turn on the headlights." Mr. Stark had arrived at the first tee. Peter got out of the golf cart and retrieved his driver but stood back to watch Mr. Stark tee off. The drive looked good to Peter's uneducated eye. When Mr. Stark stepped to the side, Peter stepped up to the tee. A moment later, the golf ball took off and landed inches from the green.

Tony shook his head. The kid was going to destroy him at golf. Getting back in the golf cart they road out to where Tony's ball landed. "I know I said I wasn't going to say anything but how do you manage controlling a golf swing but not a punch."

"I didn't at first. I'm pretty sure the first one ended up in New Jersey." Peter bit his bottom lip and thought about it. "It's just easier when it's something else, like when I catch someone else's punch and use its momentum as it's own weapon. Hitting something with my fist just doesn't feel right."

Tony thought about Peter's response. It answered the question as to why biofeedback had been such an utter failure. He was beginning to understand that it didn't have as much to do about control of his strength. Like Peter's view of himself it was all tied up in his head. Tony hit his ball and moved it at least within sight of Peter's. He could work with this.

Peter thoroughly enjoyed playing golf. It was quiet and it was just him and Mr. Stark talking about everything from SI work to the nanotech to what was going on at school. It was around hole 16 that he thought about what MJ and Ned had said about the accords. "Mr. Stark, what's going on with the accords?"

Tony looked over at Peter as the kid putted his ball into the hole. He didn't know what Peter knew about the accords. It was his own fault. The one time the kid had asked him about it he had all but blown up at him. The timing was just bad. It was in the middle of Ross’s push for registration regardless of age. When Ross brought it up in session, Tony had almost lost it right then and there. Ross was a snake. Ross wanted super soldiers. Peter's enhancements were the closest anyone had come since the original serum to a stable outcome. Tony wanted to believe it was more of a fluke than a conceived creation but the last thing he wanted was anyone getting their hands on the kid. That thought gave him nightmares. "They're being amended. If they get amended to everyone's satisfaction, then they'll work on pardons for everyone."

Peter dropped his putter back into his bag. "MJ and Ned said something about Secretary Ross wanting everyone registered, regardless of age."

Tony putted his ball into the hole. "That option is no longer on the table."

"But it was?"

"It was mentioned, but it was shut down the same day." Tony looked at Peter. He knew the kid understood what registration meant. "Pete, if anything were to happen to expose you, you need to know that there are contingency plans in place to keep you, May, Ned, and MJ safe." Tony saw the look of shock on Peter's face. "Kid, as long as it's in my power, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Understand?" Tony dropped his putter into his bag and waited for Peter to get into the golf cart before sliding behind the wheel and heading to the next tee.

"It just took me by surprise when MJ and Ned said something about it. It's something I should have been paying attention to and I can't believe I didn't know about it." Peter stretched his legs out in front of him and thought through what Mr. Stark had said. Contingency plans. The man always had contingency plans and now they include him. If the accords got amended what would that mean. He had mentioned pardons. Would that mean that the Avengers would be back? Would he be back in Queens patrolling on his own while they were off fighting the latest Big Bad? Would he end up back on an airport tarmac in another country stealing Captain America's shield? Would Captain America and Mr. Stark end up in another fight? He still wasn't positive about what happened he just knew Mr. Stark had ended up with more than a couple bruises that weren't there after the airport battle.

"I agree you should have been more in the loop. I purposely didn't talk to you about the accords because I didn't want you to worry about it unless you had to." Tony eased the golf cart to a stop but didn't get out at the tee. He knew Peter well enough by now that he recognized when the kids wheels were turning. Might as well get it all out in the open. "So if the accords get amended and the rest of the Avengers get pardoned, how would you feel about them being at the compound? It would be a little busier but you'd have more people to train with. Natasha and Steve could probably both teach you quite bit. Probably more than me when it comes to evasion and whatever your version of hand to hand combat is." Tony smiled at the grin the comment elicited from Peter, but he could still see that his wheels were turning.

"Think we can figure out how to avoid fighting it out at an airport in another country this time?" Peter got out of the golf cart and retried his driver.

Tony slid out and watched the kid tee off. "That's the plan."


	18. Date Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**This is the first chapter (which will actually end up being two chapters) that wasn’t included when I posted this story originally (on the other site). MJ makes a comment much further along in the story about having to stitch Peter up. This is sort of the backstory for the comment.** _

“So what did you think?” Peter looked at MJ apprehensively. It had taken weeks to convince her to go to this particular movie. He had sacrificed multiple chances to pick what they would do on what had become their standard date night. He thought maybe the body count alone would be enough for her not to hate it.

MJ pursed her lips. “I didn’t hate it.” She saw the look of relief on Peter’s face and realized she needed to back him down or extensive movie marathons, including the extended versions and possibly some tv series, were in her future. “But I didn’t love it either.” 

Peter turned and faced her, walking backwards to keep up. “Come on. What’s not to love? It’s a archetypal story...set in space. There’s action, adventure, intrigue, bad choices, heroic sacrifices...”

MJ sighed. “It’s Star Wars.”

“It was Rogue One...which was a prequel to Star Wars.”

MJ rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. “It wasn’t bad. That’s all you’re getting.”

Peter grinned and spun around to walk next to her. “I’ll take it.” He fought back the urge to ask if she’d watch Star Wars with him now that she had seen Rogue One. He thought that was probably pushing his luck. He felt the familiar tingle and his fingers tightened around hers as his eyes darted around looking for the source of what was setting him off. His eyes landed on two men erupting through a door. He recognized both of them. Spider-Man had tangled with them last week. They were low level gang members, really just thugs that loosely associated with one of the local gangs. The problem was they thrived on hurting people for no reason. Which is what they were apparently intent on doing now.

Pushing MJ back he waded forward. He wasn’t sure what his plan was but he knew he couldn’t confront them like he had before. He looked at everyone surrounding them. A couple other kids their age, probably leaving the same movie they had. Some tourists, you could always spot tourists. A young boy with his mom. If Peter had to guess, the boy was about ten. There were a couple of guys in their 20’s, another group of men probably in their 40’s, and then a group of girls. None of them needed to be involved in the chaos that he felt certain was about to erupt. 

MJ watched Peter work his way towards the two thugs. It had been easy to figure out what had made him tense up. She still wasn’t entire sure what he planned on doing. She lost sight of him as the various groups of people started trying to move out of the way as the two thugs pushed a couple of the guys that had been walking between them. She pressed herself against a building to try to avoid being trampled by the people fleeing the fight.

Sirens could be heard in the distance and one of the gang members signaled to his friend that they needed to leave. MJ watched the men disappear around the corner before glancing over at Peter. She noticed three things simultaneously. One was that the look on Peter’s face wasn’t one she was familiar with. She had seen his frustrated face, his embarrassed face, his determined face, his playful face. This one was different. It’s predominant feature was one of pain. The second was that his eyes were darting, looking for something but she wasn’t sure what. The third was his hand pressed to his side. It was partially hidden by the flannel shirt that he had on over the Star Wars t-shirt. It was the plain black one with the original Star Wars logo. It had taken her a moment to realize that red was seeping through his fingers. All of the pieces clicked. Peter was hurt. Badly. 

People were starting to circulate around in the aftermath of the chaos. She took the opportunity to push him towards the alley. Once they were back far enough and hidden from prying eyes, she pulled his hand back and pulled up his shirt. She blew out the breath she had held when she saw the wound. “Web-shooter. Now.”

On autopilot the web shooters formed around Peter’s wrists. He looked at MJ and started to tell her there was no way he was swinging anywhere right now. 

“Webs. Lots of them.” MJ shook her head when he just looked at her in confusion. She grabbed his wrist and triggered the device herself, aiming it at his side. Sufficiently covered, she gently patted the surface to make sure it was sealed around the wound. “Spider webs are used around the world as makeshift bandages. It’ll hold.” She glanced at his wrist, knowing Karen was also listening. “Karen, I need Stark...now...route it to my phone.” She slipped it out of her pocket and connected the call that was already ringing through. “Stark...Peter’s hurt. Peter...not his alter ego.” She glanced around the alley to make sure they were still alone as she heard a string of expletives from the other end.

“How bad?” Tony was already cycling through his options. Helen was in Korea. He was on the other side of the freaking county. May usually worked on Thursday nights. He had already triggered the suit and was headed that direction but it would take him more than an hour to get there. 

MJ looked up at Peter who had gotten significantly paler. “Uh, stab wound. He lost a decent amount of blood but I think I’ve got it stopped right now. What do I need to do?” She knew she couldn’t just take him to a hospital. 

Tony flipped through the data on his HUD. FRIDAY had talked to Karen and he saw they were only a couple blocks away from the safe house. FRIDAY had also sent a message to Rhodey who happened to be in New York. “Can you get him to the safe house? It’s only a couple blocks away. Karen can guide you there. Rhodey is in Manhattan and I’ll get him to meet you there.” He had thought about sending the suit to Peter but that would have left MJ alone, which Peter would never agreed to.

MJ slipped an arm around Peter, careful to avoid the wound on his side. “I know where the safe house is. I think I can get him there. I’ll call you when we’re there.” She disconnected the call and slid her phone back into her pocket.

“I can’t believe you just hung up on him.” Peter smirked. He was over the initial onset of pain. Or maybe he was just attempting to be over it because as he put one foot in front of the other he realized the pain was still there.

“He’ll get over it.” She urged him forward. “I can’t carry you. We can’t take a cab to the safe house. I’m not sure if you even have the nanotech suit with you but even if you did you couldn’t just walk down the street in it and you certainly can’t swing anywhere. It’ll take Rhodey 45 minutes to get over the bridge from Manhattan at this time of night and even at the snails pace you’re walking we’ll still beat him there. I’m still not watching all of the movies but if you refrain from bleeding everywhere I may watch a second one just as a thank you for not dying.” They had merged into the flow of people walking on the sidewalk at this point. MJ concentrated on Peter just moving in a somewhat fluid movement. 

“MJ, you’re rambling.” Every step pulled at his side. Broken bones hurt, but he could deal with them. Cuts would bleed, but not like this. He had gotten a look at how much blood was on his hand and he was guessing he probably had never bled this much before. Getting stabbed sucked. And apparently MJ rambled in emergencies. Good to know on both counts. “And it’s not loaded yet.”

MJ frowned. “I’m not rambling. I’m stating facts. What’s not loaded?”

“The Iron Spider. We’re still working on the interface that will let me choose from deploying just web shooters or the full suit.” Peter tried to suck in a breath. Moving in general hurt. He glanced up at the street sign. Two blocks down, one to go. “In case you were wondering getting stabbed is way worse than getting cut or breaking something. I mean the broken bones are nothing. I just need to make sure the bones line up correctly...”

“Ok, now you’re rambling.” MJ could see the safe house ahead. They just had to make it there without getting stopped. Two teenagers walking around one off the lesser populated areas at this time of night was suspicious at best. Relief spread through her as they entered the safety of the building. She let go of him long enough to pull up the elevator door. She glanced over at him as the elevator carried them up to the floor with the medical equipment. Even if he passed out at this point she felt fairly confident she could at least drag him to where he needed to be. 

She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and slid it out as she pulled the elevator door open and maneuvered Peter out. She knew who it was before he said anything. “What do I need to do first.”

“IV. Is he still conscious?”

“Yes I’m still conscious.” MJ had answered the phone on speaker. She smirked at the amount of snark in Peter’s tone and was a little surprised by the relief in Tony’s voice. 

“IV bags are in the cabinet. Just insert it into the auto IV and it’ll do the rest.”

Peter took the bag from her and slid it into the device himself and slid his arm into the sleeve, cringing slightly as the needle inserted. He tried pulling up the edge of his shirt with his free hand. 

MJ pushed his hand back and pulled up the shirt. “You’re going to need a new Star Wars shirt.” She had put her phone on the table next to the inclined bed in the pared down medical suite at the safe house. “Ok, Stark, now what?”

“Hang on, I’m patching Helen into the feed.” Tony had installed the cameras on the off chance that something like this would happen. “Helen, do you have video yet?”

“I do. MJ, what did you use to stop the bleeding?”

MJ looked up at the ceiling and frowned. “Webbing. I know it’s synthetic but I took the chance that it would hold like regular spider webs.” She looked back at Peter and hissed. “There are cameras here?” She frowned at the shrug she got in response.

“MJ, that’s genius. The webbing was a great choice. We need to remove it, clear the blood, and stitch him up. I wish we could wait for Rhodey but FRIDAY has his ETA too far away. Do you think you can handle stitching him?” She had already texted Claire Temple to see if she was anywhere close by. Peter’s blood pressure was way lower than she wanted it to be. Waiting wasn’t an ideal option.

“I can do this.” MJ met Peter’s eyes and nodded, squeezing his hand.


	19. You Are You

MJ sat back and took a couple of deep breaths. Peter wasn’t going to die. He had probably never been in any real danger of dying but it hadn’t seemed like that when she was trying to get him to the safe house or when she was trying to keep the blood out of her way while she was stitching him up. She looked down at her hands and saw them covered in blood. Peter’s blood. She stood up and forced herself to walk calmly over to the sink and started washing her hands. As the blood ran off them under the water she realized her hands had started shaking. She stared at them, wondering if they were going to stop shaking, until the water started running clear. She turned off the water and thought about what was swirling around in her head. “You could have stopped them.”

Peter opened his eyes and tried to look over his shoulder at her. “What?”

MJ spun around and walked over to Peter, checking to make sure he wasn’t bleeding through the bandage. “You could have stopped them without getting hurt.”

Peter shrugged. “Spider-Man could have stopped them, not Peter Parker.”

MJ’s eyes darted up to Peter’s. “Keeping your identity secret is more important than your life?” Peter started to open his mouth to respond but MJ cut him off. “You realize how ridiculous that is, right? You can’t be Spider-Man if you’re dead”. MJ collapsed back in the chair and looked at Peter. “You knew something was happening, I felt you tense up. We could have stayed out of it all together.”

Peter reached over and grabbed the wet towel and started cleaning the blood of his hand. “I did keep you out of it. I pushed you back and made sure you weren’t near it.”

“And then you rushed in to do what...”. MJ threw herself to her feet and started pacing. “What was the plan? Obviously it wasn’t for Spider-Man to stop the fight.”

Peter frowned. It had taken him way longer than it should have to pick up on the fact that MJ was pissed. “MJ...”. He waited for her to look at him. “All I wanted to do was make sure no one got hurt.”

“You got hurt.” MJ knew she was yelling. She was completely baffled as to how Peter wasn’t getting this. Peter was really smart. Smarter than her. Smarter than most of their teachers. How could he not understand. Then it hit her. “Oh my god. It’s why you let Flash bully you. It’s why you just take it. So no one else has to. Peter...”

They both turned when they heard the elevator. The door raised and Rhodey stepped off. “Peter, you ok?”

Peter forced a smile on his face. “I’m fine.”

MJ stood up. “I need you to take me home. Now.”

“MJ!” Peter started to get up until he felt his arm pull. He started to undo the IV. MJ was pissed off and they needed to talk about it.

Rhodey wasn’t sure what he had walked into but he strode forward and grabbed Peter’s hand, stopping him from undoing the IV. “You’re going to pull the stitches out and you know the IV just helps you heal.” He looked down at his side where a white bandage covered his side. “Dr. Cho said the knife managed to missed everything but muscle but you still need to take it easy.”

Peter looked over Rhodey’s shoulder at MJ. She looked scared. She also looked mad. Both of those he could deal with. The problem was she also looked sad. He had no idea what to do with that. “If I promise to stay put, will you take MJ home?”

Rhodey scrutinized Peter. “You’re not just going to get up and leave the minute we’re gone?” He couldn’t decide if he could trust him or not. From the information FRIDAY had fed him on the drive over it had been a scuffle with some thugs so he didn’t think there was somebody Peter felt like he needed to go after which is what he was most worried about. 

“I won’t go anywhere.” Peter looked back at Rhodey. “Please? She just had to stitch me up and she’s kinda just done.”

Rhodey looked back at MJ. “Ok. But the only reason I’m agreeing is because Tony is less than 10 minutes out and you know he’ll just track you down if you leave.” He looked at the monitor showing Peter’s vitals. “Plus, all of your readings are good so I know you’re not dying.”

Peter forced another smile. “Thanks Rhodey.” He looked at MJ. “MJ...”. He had no idea what he needed to say or even what he should say. “Rhodey will make sure you get home ok.” He was 100% sure that was not what he was supposed to have said based on the look on her face. He watched the elevator door close and heard the mechanisms taking the cab to the ground floor. He pressed his head back and closed his eyes. He had no idea how this had gotten so far out of control but it sucked.

XXXXXXXXXX

Rhodey glanced at MJ as he pulled out of the underground parking of the safe house. “You want to tell me what’s going on with you and Spider-Kid?”

MJ clinched her jaw. Everything she wanted to say to Peter started spilling out of her mouth. “His need to sacrifice himself to protect other people almost got him killed. I get the whole ‘no one can know who I am’ thing. I understand the danger. The danger for him, for May, Ned, the school...”. She looked over at Rhodey, “but it’s not just that. He has this idea in his head that he has to protect everyone. On the surface, it’s stereotypical superhero. I mean who else runs headfirst into dangerous situations. There’s a type...”. She glared at Rhodey, definitely lumping him into the same category. “But he takes it to a whole other level.” She took a breath and stared down at her hands, “It’s like he seeks it out.”

Rhodey rolled to a stop at a stoplight and looked over at MJ. “You done?” MJ looked out the window, remaining silent. Rhodey waited long enough to make sure she wasn’t going to keep going. “Peter finds it easy to sacrifice himself. After I met him I wondered if it wasn’t because he felt guilty about his uncle.” The light changed and he pulled forward with traffic. “Then he popped out with what happened at the Stark Expo.” He looked over at MJ, noticing that she had turned to look at him. “In 2011 you and Peter were what, 10? So little 10 year old Peter Parker, wearing an Iron Man mask, decides that he’s going to take on the Hammer Drones. Tony landed next to him, blew the drone to bits, probably saved Peter’s life but that’s immaterial. Peter didn’t run. And trust me, people were running. Peter stood his ground and faced down a drone that was going to kill him and everyone else around him. Not because he was a stupid kid, but because that’s who he is...Peter, not Spider-Man, is a self sacrificing hero. The spider just makes sure that he’s a lot harder to hurt.”

MJ let out the breath she had unconsciously been holding. “He lets bully’s pick on him at school so they won’t pick on others. That just sucks.”

Rhodey pulled up next to the curb of MJ’s apartment building. “It sucks. My best friend pushed a nuclear bomb through a one way wormhole. I get it. I can probably do something about the bully but all any of us can do for the self sacrificing Spider-Kid is to make sure he’s got people in his life that can help him. You just need to decide if you can handle it.”

MJ frowned. “There isn’t much I can’t handle. I did just stitch Peter up.”

Rhodey laughed. “You did. You have a future as a surgeon.”

MJ rolled her eyes. “Following in my fathers footsteps is really far down on my list.” She reached for the door handle. “Thanks Rhodey. You’re like the cool uncle in Peter’s weird little family.”

Rhodey shrugged. “Cool uncle I’ll take. You good?”

MJ opened the door. “Jury is still out. Make sure Peter gets home ok.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony landed hard on the roof and retracted the armor into the housing. The roof entrance slid open. They had situated the medical suite on the top floor for a reason. “Kid, you’re going to give me a heart attack. You ok?”

Peter opened his eyes as Mr. Stark walked towards him. “I’ll live.” 

Tony pulled the chair next to Peter and sat down, examining the bandage. “Helen said MJ did a good job.”

“She did.” Peter’s eyes lit up, but then frowned. “She’s mad at me and I’m not really sure why. Rhodey took her home.”

Tony nodded. “He just dropped her off and is on his way back here to pick us up.” He sat back and studied Peter. “How mad is she?”

Peter shrugged. “She thought I should have stayed out of it.”

“And you aren’t going to do that.” Tony stretched out his legs and crossed his arms. As much as everyone in his life would prefer it, Peter was never going to ‘stay out of it’. 

Peter looked down. “It would be easier to keep everything separate. There are times when I wish no one knew who Spider-Man was. It’s so hard for MJ, Ned, and May to understand.”

Tony nodded. “But, I’ve also seen them stand beside you and bail you out of trouble. So find a balance. Plus, I’m pretty sure neither one of us has any kind of mind wiping technology.”

Peter smiled. He heard the IV click off and Mr. Stark reached over and disconnected it. Peter stretched his arm. It did wonders for him but he hated behind hooked up to it. Pushing himself up, he swung his legs off. His side still hurt. He put a hand over the bandage and pushed himself up.

Tony kept an eye on Peter. He seemed semi stable. When MJ called him, it had hit him hard. Harder than he expected. Spider-Man got hurt periodically. It was a natural consequence of going out every night. Peter getting hurt was different. He turned toward the elevator when he heard it moving upward. “Rhodey’s back. Ready to go home?”

Peter nodded. “Oh, how long have there been cameras here.”

“Since the beginning.” Tony frowned at Peter. “Why...what did you do?”

Peter shook his head, “Nothing really...MJ...”

Tony laughed. “You brought your girlfriend to your safe house.”

“I’m a teenage boy...of course I brought my girlfriend to my super secret safe house.” Peter hoped he wasn’t bright red.

“Did you do anything stupid?”

“No!” Peter knew he was bright red at this point. 

“Don’t worry about it then.” Tony smirked at Rhodey as he stepped off the elevator. “Our ride is here.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter gingerly stepped off the bottom step of the last flight of steps leading to the door of his apartment building. He had crashed last night, even before Mr. Stark had left. May got home right after they had so Mr. Stark and Rhodey briefed her on what had happened. And apparently she talked to Dr. Cho too because this morning when he got up she was ready with fresh bandages. May had handled the whole thing way better than he had expected. He pushed the door open and froze. “MJ...”

MJ held out a bag to him. “I’m sorry donuts.” 

Peter took the bag and opened it. He could smell his favorites already. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” He pulled out one of the donuts and took a bite.

“Yes I do. You are you. I know who you are so I shouldn’t have expected anything different.” MJ smirked at Peter as he shoved the rest of the donut into his mouth. “How’s your side?”

Peter shrugged and reached down and grabbed her hand as they walked towards the subway. “May changes the bandages this morning. It’s almost healed. PE is going to be challenging. I hope we’re watching some kind of video or something.” He looked over at her. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

MJ nodded. “I talked to Rhodey on the way home. And I thought a lot about everything. I’m good.” She hesitated a little, “So there are cameras at the safe house.”

Peter nodded. “We didn’t do anything. But I did have Karen erase everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**Ok...so when I decided to post this story here, the original plan was to post the “High School” years as one story and then the “College Years” as a second story. But...the High School years is about 80 chapters. So, I’m splitting it up into smaller stories. The next story will be up in the am...Peter’s One Man Crusade on Drugs in Queens...that ends up amending the accords, bringing the Avengers back, and uncovering a Hydra plot.** _


End file.
